Please Welcome Prairie Postgres!

Dear Postgres Community! In this post, I want to formally introduce Prairie Postgres, a project that has kept me really busy for the past several months.

Recently, you’ve seen a lot of me online, talking about things I want to do and things I am already doing. Thinking about all these activities holistically, I can group them all around three common themes: Postgres “elementary education,” connecting with application developer communities, and connecting with educational institutions. The overall goal is broader promotion of knowledge about Postgres and its best practices.

Why do I think this is important? Postgres is undoubtedly the most beloved and most well-known open-source database, but too many people jump into the ocean of possibilities without being equipped with even basic knowledge. This creates a barrier for adoption and results in disappointments and not being able to get the most out of PostgreSQL.

The most important mission of Prairie Postgres is creating Postgres educational opportunities in the United States Midwest States. We want to focus on Midwest because other parts of the US have PostgreSQL User Groups and conferences, and the Midwest has a lot of Postgres but not enough community activities. We know that there are many people in the region working with Postgres, and we want to reach out to them. I often hear the sentiment that we see “all familiar faces” at Postgres events, and this includes not only the speakers, but the attendees as well, and we want to change that.

We are making our very first steps, but even these first steps wouldn’t be possible without tremendous help from many people. Firstly, I want to thank Pat Wright who gave me the idea to create an NFP, and then helped navigate the legal field – I can’t even imagine how long it would have taken us without his help.

Next, I want to thank Dian Fay and Anna Bailliekova, Prairie Postgres co-founders, who jumped into this adventure and took upon themselves the most important task of never letting me make any decisions by myself without their consent. Shaun Thomas and Carlos Aranibar have stepped up to join our board and help us with both educational content and operations.

Lastly, I can’t thank enough Sarah Conway, who volunteered to help us with the website and social media content (please follow us on LinkedIn and Mastodon) . Her work can’t be overestimated (I do not know how she finds time to do that all!). I will say one thing: if this post is not the first time you hear about Prairie Postgres, that’s due to Sarah’s efforts!

We are in the very beginning of our journey, but we hope to work in close collaborations with all PostgreSQL NFP and the Core Team to benefit Postgres Project and Postgres Community.

Finally – a small ask :). We are trying to bring more students from Chicago schools to PG Day Chicago. We are sponsoring a half of the student’s tickets price, but for many students, even a half-price is too much. An extra $75 will help one student to attend PG Day Chicago for free. Any donations to Prairie Postgres starting from today and until April 24, will be used towards student attendance.

Many thanks 🙂