My name is Dan Birlem, I am 19 years old, from the greater Sacramento, CA area. I founded a small company with my business partner and best friend Jake Bellacera, called Pixolia. I have had a passion for software and computers since the age of 5, when I got my first Packard Bell that screamed at 75mhz with a whooping 8mb of RAM and a massive 1GB hard drive, all on a sleek Windows 95 install. Clean.
I began working with salesforce.com almost a year ago through an internship at Stone Cobra, a local software development company I was fortunate enough to secure. My employment at Stone Cobra provided the first step into the world of software sold as a service, and since then, I've been formulating how I want to push the envelope and bring something new to the arena.
The real message behind salesforce seems to be that it makes people better at what they are already doing. So I began thinking, what as a TOOL could be made to make workflows and environments more efficient while all the same accomplishing the necessary steps to make an improvement to the lives of the end user through increased success.
The inevitable led to my discovery of maintaining a community on salesforce, empowering the Force.com platform in a way that would help out those who could arguably use a hand more than anyone else: teachers. The underpaid in charge of promoting and pushing the next generation of kids out into the world with productivity and positive contributions at hand.
This combines my efforts as a developer and someone looking to make a positive difference in the world, and I feel this is right where I belong.
Being said, I began my philanthropic quest with this message on the salesforce introduction and development board, in this very message you read now.
I have an elaborate vision drawn out, and I'm looking for people to help me realize this vision I have to make every teacher more effective at teaching, and more kids realizing the full capacity of their education.
Message Edited by dbirlem on 03-18-2010 12:27 PM
