The robotics demo, billed as "Talos: Personal Robot" was a late cancellation after Columbia University's Jason Ravel was denied the go-ahead to take his technology off campus. Meetup sponsor MLB Advanced Media helped fill the gap, giving meeting-goers a virtual tour of the control room and data centers that let the company stream 1.5 petabytes of digital content every baseball season. That is ... a lot, and a worthy point of pride that the bulk of that content is being stored and served from MLBAM's Chelsea facilities.

As for the future identity of the company, which started out as the live-streaming arm of Major League Baseball, but now functions as a technology firm serving video content for dozens of providers, a shift may eventually be in the offing. "We're now starting to pick up momentum in getting to other businesses," senior vice president Joe Inzerillo said. "At some point in time, we'll have to deal with the branding issue, but at this point it hasn't prevented us from growing."

Also very cool: Tactonic founder Gerry Seidman showed off his company's next-gen pressure-sensing tech, a sensor-and-software package that can turn any surface into a keyboard or joystick. Other potential applications: dashboard control for the 21st-century automobile (the intelligence of the sensors might mean a cruise control button that follows you left thumb, wherever your hand rests on the wheel) and floor tiles potentially capable of everything from medical diagnostics to helping retailers determine which shoppers are demonstrating the body-language of a person ready to buy.

Meanwhile, a team from Citia, a company dedicated to "reinventing the media experience," showed off a neat trick with a Leap Motion controller, using hand gestures to page through content. Next up for the company: getting a collaboration with Leap Motion and Snoop Dogg ready in time for SXSW.

If there was any complaint about the presentations, it's that they focused on the products' respective reaches, rather than the underlying tech: more than one meeting-goer told us they wanted a deeper dive into MLBAM's and Tactonic's engineering. Then again, the feeling probably wasn't universal. NYTM executive director Nate Westheimer seemed to spend the evening prodding someone, anyone in the audience to go ahead and ask demoers some technical questions.

It wasn't all flashy hardware. Just in time for Valentine's Day, How About We unveiled its new website, which adds a new membership service for couples to the site's first-date model. Now on offer: curated experiences such as discounted movie tickets, dessert tastings and catered dinners at home. Still to come? Targeted recommendations based on criteria such as the night of the week and past preferences. "Because," as co-CEO Brian Schechter told the meetup, "there's falling love, and there's also being in love." Awwww.

When Shelby.tv presented at New York Tech Meetup in May 2011, CTO Dan Spinosa showed meeting-goers a photo of cofounder Reece Pacheco's bikini-clad sister. This time, the company demoed a product that let's users program their own channel of video: As  proof of concept, Mr. Pacheco showed off fredwilson.tv, which compiles all the video that the Union Square Ventures investor has shared on a single platform. Which might be another Valentine's Day idea, if you and your special someone consider peering into the mind of your favorite venture capitalist a cultural experience.

Lastly, we wouldn't miss a chance to note that NYTM managing director Jessica Lawrence reminded meetup community members to provide input on the meetup's recently released slate of proposals for New York's political hopefuls.

"As Mayor Bloomberg is stepping away from his post," she said, "he's done so much to help us become a city that's really know for technology innovation, and we really want to keep that going."

(Photo: "Alexander Torrenegra)

For many in the New York City startup community, it's been nice having Mayor Michael Bloomberg around. Not only does the third-term mayor double as the city's most successful tech entrepreneur, Mr. Bloomberg has championed policies aimed at turning New York into a hotbed of innovation.

With Mr. Bloomberg's time in office coming to a close, and no candidate stepping boldly into his loafers, the New York Tech Meetup revealed plans to host a series of candidates forums in the months leading up to this year’s mayoral election.

It's all part of the tech community attempt to claim a larger role in the political sphere as startups lose their best ally in City Hall, NYTM executive director Jessica Lawrence told Betabeat.

News of the forums, which have not been finalized, comes after The Wall Street Journal reported that NYTM is drafting proposals to educate would-be officials on issues that that the tech community considers paramount.

"Our main goal is to make sure our issues are part of the dialogue," Ms. Lawrence told us. "It's something that’s incredibly important if the city is to be a center for innovation, that the people elected to office listen to what those of us in the tech community have to say, and pay attention to that expertise."

According to Ms. Lawrence, NYTM has been gathering input on its proposals for at least six months, but the organization's efforts to play a greater political role date back to its efforts to defeat SOPA and PIPA in 2011, during which NYTM aimed to join the national debate on the anti-piracy laws.

Beyond NYTM's efforts, the New York tech community has been increasingly feeling its political oats. The city's tech community helped raise money for President Barack Obama's reelection campaign. In 2010, congressional candidate Reshma Saujani built her campaign around an innovation and entrepreneurship platform, drawing support from tech luminaries such as Jack Dorsey, of Twitter and Square and Facebook’s Chris Hughes.

“I think we've seen with Bloomberg how important it is to have a mayor who understands the role that tech plays in the local economy," Ms. Lawrence said. "Because of that we've been able to make significant progress in establishing New York as center of innovation.”

To continue the strides that the city's tech sector has made under Mayor Bloomberg, NYTM is expected to emphasize greater access to high-speed Internet and public data, as well a greater emphasis on math and science education in the city's public schools, when it presents its proposals to candidates for the offices of mayor and public advocate.

A preliminary version of the slate will be discussed by the NYTM board at a meeting tonight. Assuming passage, the slate would be presented for comment to the organization's 29,000 members, then finalized in the weeks and months to come.

“It’s going to be a combination of trying to be representative of the community, and what the community needs are without giving the candidates too many issues to deal with,” Ms. Lawrence said.

While it's too early to say precisely what shape the forums might take, Ms. Lawrence anticipated large gatherings that would allow the candidates and the tech community to get to know each other better.

"As we look at the city's economy, its systems for responding to disaster, or the traditional systems of making data available or awarding contracts—they’re all being changed by technology," Ms. Lawrence said. “It's not going backwards anytime soon. It's important that we start having conversations about how tech is impacting the city's economics and infrastructure.”

The scene at Secret Clubhouse. (Photo: Tumblr)

Late last week, Betabeat took a two-hour trip via interborough bus to Secret Clubhouse, a newly launched Williamsburg coworking spot. The shared office (decorated with vintage Apples and a motley assortment of posters) was packed with techies typing away on the laptops, but the vibe was no more panicked than that of an undergraduate library in the earliest days of reading period.

Nearby, permanent residents Small Girls PR were hashing out wardrobing details for the upcoming “Tech Homecoming” fundraiser and upending their desks in search of a missing checkbook. The occasional burst of laughter filtered from the back, and every so often someone would look up with a piece of news gleaned from Twitter. But quiet largely reigned.

The only obvious sign of extraordinary circumstances was a sign on the wall, handwritten grade-school-binder style: “Sandy Shelter,” it said, with a Wifi login and the message of support, “we <3 u.”

Off to one side we found Jessica Lawrence, managing director of New York Tech Meetup, whose jaunty scarf and turquoise cardigan weren’t quite enough to mask an uncharacteristic wanness. Crouched over her laptop, she was crafting an update for volunteers, letting them know what would be the most helpful in the next 24 to 48 hours. Across the desk, her partner in community organizing, Noel Hidalgo, was working away while encased in a gigantic parka. It was quite clear neither had had a moment of downtime since the storm hit.

The wrath of Sandy inspired an outpouring of civic feeling and desire to lend a hand. The trick was directing that energy toward productive results. Can Ruby on Rails really help the wreckage in the Far Rockways? That's what Ms. Lawrence and Mr. Hidalgo were attempting to do from their desk, the battlefield headquarters of New York Tech Responds. In concert with Tony Bacigalupo, cofounder of Soho-based New Work City, the triumvirate had spent the week coordinating the closest thing to an official New York tech relief effort.

In the last week, they've dispatched their army of volunteers for a variety of tasks, such as helping a flooded Chelsea gallery with data recovery, lending the aid platform Recovers.org in handling a deluge of traffic and assisting with relocated polling places. This week, they stand ready to help businesses affected by the storm, whether it's extracting data from soaked servers, setting up public Wifi or restoring point of sale systems.

Spend time around the city’s entrepreneurs when they’re in hustle mode, and it’s common to hear the term “disruption." Every other startup seems ready to shake the foundations of education, medicine, government or something similarly pie in the sky. It sometimes seems the original negative connotation has worn completely away. But there are few things quite like a hurricane to knock a sense of perspective into even the most wildly optimistic.

And so as the hurricane approached, tech scenesters sprang into action. Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley touted the Bowery Mission and offered to haul East Villagers’ donations in his car. Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson took his blog and encouraged everyone to support Occupy Sandy. Zynga GM Dan Porter trekked out to the Rockaways, then returned to write a Business Insider op-ed encouraging coders to develop disaster recovery tools. “We are thrilled with how many tech companies, large and small, have reached out to ask how they can help those in need,” Rachel Haot, the city's Chief Digital Officer, told Betabeat.

But Ms. Lawence, Mr. Bacigalupo and Mr. Hidalgo have been the most visible in their attempts to help, emerging as a three-person clearinghouse for techie efforts.

“We’ve been in contact, I think, with pretty much every major government entity and recovery organization"--the Red Cross, FEMA, the Board of Elections--“just trying to make sure that everybody knows that we have this group of people that are willing to help,” said Ms. Lawrence. Their small army numbers somewhere north of seven hundred, a representative cross section of the meetup’s 28,000 members.

Typically, the New York Tech Meetup has a different set of priorities, which revolve around advocating for and serving the interests of its members. Most famous for hosting packed demo nights at NYU’s Skirball Center, the group’s last big public push was in January, when Ms. Lawrence and her compatriots helped scramble the jets to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act, objectionable primarily for the onerous enforcement burdens it would have placed on Internet startups. But as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the city, suddenly their horizons expanded.

It began with a note to the meetup’s members, announcing they’d be happy to help anyone trying to get the word out about cancelled or postponed events. But when she and chairman Andrew Rasiej remembered they had in their hands a powerful megaphone, Ms. Lawrence recruited Mr. Bacigalupo (initially for his help designing signup sheet, but he’s been at it ever since) and Mr. Hildalgo, whose previous projects include serving as a public-private liaison include launching NYSenate.gov while serving as Director of Technology Innovation. They’ve been at it ever since, a flurry of conference calls and Skype chats and Google Docs.

If that makes it sound like their results are a little tough to pinpoint, Mr. Bacigalupo says they've ended up spending more time helping those coordinating relief efforts, rather than the victims themselves. “While it’s hard to quantify, I would say I have good reason to believe that our efforts have helped make other efforts more efficient and more effective than they would have if we had done nothing,” he told Betabeat.

Perhaps the most visible manifestation of the post-hurricane outpouring of good feeling has been Sandy Coworking, an effort to make desks and Wifi available for anyone who need a place to be productive. Almost as soon as the clouds parted, anyone with a working office was offering to host the displaced. Staffers from Buzzfeed took up residence in Heart’s cafeteria. Kickstarter moved in with Boxee. Venture capitalist Charlie O’Donnell suggested the hashtag #sandycoworking for those seeking and offering space; as the offers began flying fast and furious on Twitter, Mr. Hidalgo hacked out a platform for anyone to list what they had.

But if the crowd at Secret Clubhouse was any indication, the coworking effort was mostly lifesaver for tech companies--and that includes Gawker. Founder Rick Webb opened his doors almost as soon as the power went out south of Flatiron. Employees from Tumblr (where he’s helping build out a sales and marketing operation) and Foursquare (a company in which he invested). Gawker had filled in empty desks, while Gizmodo had annexed the conference room. By the time Mr. Hidalgo had arrived, Nick Denton was already holding court in the back.

Ms. Lawrence admitted that coworking isn't exactly a familiar concept outside of the confines of Silicon Alley. "But the cool thing is that after this experience they’re probably all going to know what coworking is a little bit more," she said. "Whether they’ve meant to or not, a lot of them have probably ended up coworking.” Even Bloomberg-terminal-addicted Wall Streeters learned to work from home.

But as reports of restored power in downtown Manhattan rippled through the room in Williamsburg, we couldn't help but wonder how sustainable this sudden flowering of civic feeling really was. Mr. Bacigalupo thinks the last week was a turning point: "This was the time, in my mind, when the tech community stepped out of its own bubble and stepped up in a huge way to help this city as a whole,” he said. “This was the tech community doing something that wasn’t about advocating for the technology community.”

Ms. Lawrence said they're looking into whether volunteers would make a long-term commitment to serving as a kind of tech corps--a crew of first responders with very specific skills. And after initially proposing a hackathon to address the issues raised by the storm, New York Tech Responds decided it made more sense to partner with events already planned, providing them suggestions.

Of course, the rapid-fire pace of a hackathon doesn't allow for the time to produce finely-honed tools for FEMA or develop a smarter electrical grid that’s less vulnerable to natural disasters.

It may be that the best possible outcome is simply a reminder that the world has bigger problems than shilling virtual goods. Back on the grind, Anil Dash tweeted he was finding it “very jarring to be back at work at a desk with power & internet, looking at a bunch of tech crap that seems totally meaningless.” What better way to motivate a free market capitalist to spend her spare time construct a donation management solution for Goodwill–especially as images from Staten Island and the Rockaways fade from the front pages? After all, peer pressure worked for voting.

We are under WAY TOO MUCH STRESS for this, Google.

It's been a nerve-wracking week here on the East Coast, which is just about the only explanation for the magnitude of the Twitter freakout when Gmail and Google Docs, just now, were mysteriously unavailable for literal minutes.

Here is a chronicle of the perilous episode:

Now let's all just thank God that those of us working remotely don't have to log back into our spam-choked Outlook inboxes. Better yet: Stop working.

The cause for celebration was two-fold. The first was showing off demos from its inaugural class of 20 girls, who represented all five boroughs and some disarmingly ambitious ideas. (We're still scratching our head at Cora Frederick's plan to use data mining and machine learning to classify tumors.) The second was to announce an audacious new goal: to train one million girls in computer science by 2020, starting with a national expansion outside New York City next year.

The nonprofit organization, founded by former deputy public advocate Reshma Saujani and run by former Jumo managing director Kristen Titus, offers teenage girls an eight-week, full-time education in robotics, web design, and mobile development, with mentorship from engineers and executives at Twitter, Google, ZocDoc, Gilt Groupe, and more. In fact, Ms. Saujani noted last night, CEO Dick Costolo volunteered Twitter's first philanthropic donation to Girls Who Code, although she politely declined to specify the dollar amount.

On stage, Ms. Saujani pointed out that of the 8 million girls in high school right now, only 3,769 took the AP Computer Science exam. What's more, only 0.3 percent of female high school students decide to major or minor in computer science. But after this summer's session concluded, all 20 girls committed to studying computer science--a small, but integral step toward filling the 1.4 million tech jobs that expected to open up by the year 2020. "That pipeline begins in high school," she told the crowd gathered between the blank screens and buzzing monitors that make-up the floor of the stock exchange after hours.

Girls Who Code sponsors Jack Dorsey and Chris Hughes, who also supported Ms. Saujani's 2010 bid for a Congressional seat, weren't able to make it to the party. But plenty of founders and technologists flocked to the feel-good event, including Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, and General Assembly cofounder Matthew Brimer, just in from a conference in Dublin (one of the few cities without its own GA, judging by the startup's rapid expansion). Also in attendance were Foursquare's lead iPhone engineer Anoop Ranganath, Raptor Ventures VC William Peng, former ICM prodigy Kate Lee, New York City's chief digital officer Rachel Haot, Ms. Saujani's husband and LocalResponse founder Nihal Mehta, and Alex Taub, head of biz dev at Dwolla.

On stage, Twitter engineer Sara Haider and Twitter program manager Olivia Watkins, who closely mentored the girls, praised the program's many virtues. But nowhere was the upside more evident than in a speech from 15-year-old Julia Geist from Brooklyn, who recounted her transformation from the shy kid who liked physics into what Ms. Saujani called a "change agent" for her family of five siblings.

"I learned about Girls Who Code from my librarian, who noticed that I spent all of my days and much of my lunch time on the computer at the library," Ms. Geist told the beaming crowd. "I quickly learned everything from how to build mobile apps to becoming a master of user experience to building video games in Javascript." Ms. Geist is currently working on three separate freelance web development projects and teaching her dad how to code. "He is now working to become an IT professional to replace his substitute custodian job. My sisters are next on the list. Some say I’m a natural coder, but I say I’m lucky to have been a part of Girls Who Code."

For anyone inspired to donate after hearing Ms. Geist, or other equally as moving teenage technologists, there were Square devices on hand to swipe donations right from the NYSE.

Even without a horde of face-palming stock traders, the floor of the exchange is still an intoxicating milieu. Proximity to all those literal levers to the public markets were irresistible--and stern instructions from the guard not to push any elevator buttons didn't help. Mr. Newmark himself seemed tempted toward a little mischief, although he cautioned that anything untoward should only be performed with the benefit of a mask. "Did you see the Batman movie?" he explained, covering his mouth like the villainous Bain. Mr. Newmark was in the midst of this twice or thrice annual trips to New York. "I tend to stay near the K-Mart downtown and that’s where I shop," he said, admitting to a little anxiety about leaving his customer service post. "I’ve been offline for, what, two hours now? People will be nervous."

Luckily, we faired better than TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Tsotsis, who got kicked out the NYSE for an offhand joke involving spilled liquids and Facebook stock manipulation.

The juxtaposition of tech and Wall Street was as symbiotic as we've ever seen it. A Credit Suisse exec eagerly passed Ms. Saujani his congratulations and business card. While waiting in the lobby, we chatted up a Goldman analyst (who has her own startup, natch). Surely, the release of Greg Smith's tell-all must be a startup recruiter's dream? Not so much, she said with a shrug, describing life inside the House of Lloyd yesterday as "pretty normal."

Towards the end of the presentations, Ms. Saujani pulled an Oprah, distributing presents from President Barack Obama to all the girls who joined her on stage. "We have signed letters for each of you! It’s better than One Direction and Justin Bieber, right? I think so too!" she said with pride. "I dunno, Bieber would've been good?" a fellow audience member quipped next to us. "Pandemonium in the stock exchange!"

Thanks to the startup scene's growth spurt, New York City has not been short on well-intentioned initiatives to right the ratio and close the gap for tech talent. Girls Who Code seems to get many of the basics right: The organization reaches out underserved students, who defy the pattern-recognition that plagues the tech industry and its financiers. It also addresses the problem early, and offers sustained training with a practical bent toward employment.

"I wish I had majored in computer science," Ms. Saujani told Betabeat in a trading booth after the speeches. "I wish I could go home and build a mobile app on immigration and undocumented students--build an app on 'Stop and Frisk.' But I’m also taking lessons from the girls and I don’t think it’s too late for me to learn how to code either." Girls Who Code, she said, is an example of the type of initiatives she wants to spearhead in her campaign to become Public Advocate in 2013. "I was talking at some of the community colleges, like if you can teach 15-year-old girls how to code, you can teach adults how to code. And there are so many jobs that are open," she said, noting the 50,000 new jobs added in mobile development.

During the program, Ms. Saujani added, visits to Gilt Groupe and ZocDoc piqued the girls' interest. "I think a lot of them thought initally, I want to be a doctor and didn’t realize the connection between healthcare and technology, and medicine and technology."

On our way out, we asked Ms. Guest, who received her first job offer after the Girls Who Code graduation at Google's Chelsea outpost, where she'd like to work. While Google, Gilt Groupe, and Twitter feel "like a second home," she said, "My dream is to start my own company." Oh man, just wait 'til Peter Thiel hears about her!

(Photo: Uncubed)

The Uncubed tech talent fair is back, but this time it's taken on some major partners and expanded into a two-day, tech celeb-studded event plus awesome party.

As we told you back in April, NYC Uncubed is an initiative that seeks to buck traditional recruitment tactics in favor of innovative new ways for startups to recruit talent. Now, Uncubed has partnered with NYC Digital to host a tech festival on November 1st and 2nd November 12th and 13th* at the Altman Building in Manhattan.

The first day, called Scout, will be "for startups looking for talent and talented people looking for startups." Aside from having over 60 recruitment booths, there will also be classes and workshops, talks and stories by tech experts and a paper napkin pitch session. Also, because this is Startupland, there will be a ping pong tournament and a latte art battle.

The second day, Scale, will be for "startups looking to grow and brands looking to learn and collaborate." It's jam-packed with storytelling and talks from a slew of NYC tech luminaries like Scott Heiferman, Ricky Van Veen, Gary Vaynerchuck, Neil Blumanthal, Rachel Hoat and Jessica Lawrence.

The official afterparty will be DJ'd by Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem and Chris Keating of Yeasayer because of course.

Tickets for day one are $20 and for day two are $50. Sign up quickly for an earlybird discount, since next week they'll go up in price.

*Dates have been changed due to Hurricane Sandy.

Jeanne Pinder (left), the founder and CEO of Clear Health Costs and Jessica Lawrence, managing director of NYTM.

“How different is this room right now, in terms of the percentages of women versus men?” Jessica Lawrence, the managing director of New York Tech Meetup asked the audience at the second Change the Ratio and NYTM Women’s Demo night on Tuesday. She had a point. The crowd gathered at Facebook's Midtown offices to watch women-run founders demo their startups was diverse in terms of age, race, and ethnicity, yet predominately female.

Ms. Lawrence kicked off the evening by confessing that, even as the event’s organizer and a former Girl Scouts CEO, she had mixed feelings about the self-selecting event. “In some ways," she said, "having a whole separate stage just for women sometimes kind of defeats the purpose."

However, Ms. Lawrence went on to explain that in her year and a half of work at NYTM, she has had an extremely difficult time getting female-founded companies to apply to demo. “I couldn’t believe it was because there were no female founded startups in the city, so I decided to do an experiment and put out a call for Women’s Demo Night,” she explained. “And low and behold, 37 female founded startups applied."

“They were all hiding, and now I know who they are and where to find them, so I can invite them to demo at NYTM,” Ms. Lawrence said. The end goal "is to get the ratio to the point where we don’t have to have Women’s Demo Night because half the people demoing at NYTM are women.”

Ms. Lawrence described the event's atmosphere as more “intimate” than a typical NYTM. The rules for demos were also more welcoming—presenters had a loosely-timed five minutes rather than three, and early stage companies were welcome to include Powerpoints and screenshots if their pitches weren’t yet flawless. Attendees grazed on spreads of cheese and cookies, while others looked longingly at Facebook's ping pong table and mini basketball setup.

The demos were as diverse as their founders, featuring everything from Upswing.me, a platform designed to connect black and ethnic women with hair stylists specializing in curly hair (a huge market) to Continuum Fashion, a combination design lab and fashion label that uses 3D and advanced digital printing technology to change the way consumers approach apparel.

“Fashion is about so much more than just buying,” said Continuum cofounder Mary Huang. Along with a pair of her company's 3D-printed shoes, Ms. Huang was also wearing a dress designed using a photo a friend took in Barcelona made by a company called Constrvct--an interactive brand featured on Continuum. “We don’t want to be a site where you just order things,” she added, explaining that all of the user-created designs on Constrvct are public in order to encourage “a creative space for fashion design.”

The night also featured demos from two different gift-giving Facebook apps, Gift Simple and Gift Hit, as well as Fun Org, an event-finding app that launches Wednesday in New York and San Francisco.

But most impressive presentation of the night came from Jeanne Pinder, the founder and CEO of Clear Health Costs, a startup dedicated to increasing the transparency of the healthcare industry. “The problem we’re trying to solve is that nobody has any idea what stuff costs in healthcare,” said Ms. Pinder, who worked at the New York Times for over 20 years before receiving multiple grants to launch Clear Health Costs.

The site, which is currently in beta, uses crowdsourcing as well as a number of other journalistic techniques to gather information about what patients are paying for health care procedures all over the New York City area. “We’re finding that prices vary by a factor of 10,” she noted.

As an example of the type of data she's gathering, Ms. Pinder drew upon an effort to use crowdsourcing to determine the variation in the cost of birth control prescriptions throughout the city. On the site, users can share information about how much they paid for certain procedures and prescriptions, and where. “People are really excited about sharing things,” she said somewhat dryly, going on to reveal results which showed that in Park Slope one can buy birth control for just $17, though two blocks away the same prescription costs $50. The price range for a cardio stress test is even more striking, with procedures varying anywhere from $150 to $1,790.

“The idea is to tell patients where they can get their services, and at what price,” Ms. Pinder said before announcing that the team has finished collecting comprehensive data for the New York area and is currently working expanded into another city.

Representatives from Shindig, Skillcrush and Appguppy answer questions about their products.

Crowded into NYU’s Skirball center, the New York tech world got one step closer to developing Skynet Tuesday night at the monthly New York Tech Meetup, just one day after NYTM reached the 25,000 member mark.

“What I fell in love with was the community. I had not really had any tech in my background at all, and yet felt totally at home here,” gushed Jessica Lawrence, the managing director of NYTM, as she announced their membership accomplishments to cheers from the boisterous crowd.

Perhaps of more relevance to the future of our society—Jonathan Gottfried, a developer evangelist at Twilio, did a live demonstration of the TwilioBot 3000, a possible predecessor of assassin cyborgs. Mr. Gottfried was able to control the TwilioBot with his phone, sending it commands by typing numbers on his keypad … until he accidentally hung up on the TwilioBot.

But the robot didn’t drive off the stage, and Mr. Gottfried was able to answer a few questions about the bot, including a dreaded revenue inquiry. “I feel like I won’t need venture capital once my robot minions have taken over the world,” he responded, eliciting laughter from the tech savvy audience.

Vook and Appguppy Mobile also demoed during the evening, two platforms that allow you to respectively create your own ebook or your own mobile app in a matter of minutes.

Appguppy, founded by Anu Nadkarni, Raj Dandage and Ash Nadkarni, lets you make an app about your favorite topic: yourself! The service lets you integrate your personal webpage and social media presence--say tweets about a concert date if you're a singer. Watch out Apple, because Appguppy bypasses app stores and allows users to sell their all-about-me app to iPhone and Android-using friends directly through Facebook and Twitter. “Now your friends can be obsessed with you on your phones,” Ms. Nadkarni said.

In the same DIY spirit, Vook simplifies the process of designing and marketing an eBook, a process that Matthew Cavnar, the vice president of business development for Vook, insisted was unnecessarily painful.  Using the platform, you can quickly move and resize images (something that could usually take days according to Mr. Cavnar) and even insert those big, swirly letters that start chapters in all the important books. Once completed, users can sell their eBooks through iBook, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Vook’s website, and violá, you have self-published your no doubt fascinating memoir.  (Warning: don't bother trying to pretend you wrote The Bell Jar; Vook does have a quick screening process for the eBooks.)

Other notable presenters included Dashlane, Consmr and Instinct. Dashlane makes it much easier to spend your entire trust fund on Amazon by saving website passwords, emails, address and credit card information in a central location. So, instead of having to spend 15 minutes filling in the same information at every online checkout, the platform will automatically input your card number and billing information into online forms. For all you conspiracy theorists, the saved information is encrypted and can only be unencrypted with a special master password, a feature that pleased the many perpetually paranoid NYTM attendees. Dashlane does not keep any database of these passwords, only the users know them, so even if authorities subpoena the company, they would only have access to encrypted data. Dashlane: 1, Evil Government Masterminds: 0.

Consmr, which actually previously demoed at the NYTM about a year and a half ago as a website, is a smartphone app that also simplifies shopping, though in actual stores, by allowing users to scan barcodes and then see reviews of the product and alternative suggestions. Users can also look up top-rated products in certain fields, such as hair products for curly-hair.

Though Ryan Charles, the CEO of Consmr, struggled a bit with scanning the barcode on a box of Triscuits, the app does feature over 100,000 reviews. The platform will also soon be including nutrition information about food products. To underscore the brilliance of the design, Mr. Charles showed the crowd the page for a box of Trojan condoms. The top review: “Well, she didn’t get pregnant.”

Instinct, a real-life Guitar Hero-type app that teaches you to play the instrument, was a crowd favorite. Co-founder Brian Stoner practiced playing riffs as the audience clapped along. The website uses the computer’s microphone to detect the notes being played and indicate to the user whether they are hitting the correct notes. At the end of the lesson, users can show off their skills to a panel of three avatar judges. Mr. Stoner received a six, nine and seven from the judges for his lovely performance.

Shindig, a Skype-like platform that allows for more users and more complex interactions, Skillcrush, a tech education blog for anyone who has ever wondered what the hell an API or python is, Social Bycicles, which is pretty much a bicycle with a computer in it and Jirafe, a marketing tool, also demoed during the evening.

Mr. Diamond giving his candidate speech from the heart at New Work City.

About 60 of 200 registered attendees gathered at New Work City last night to hear two-minute speeches by the candidates for an open New York Tech Meetup board seat. Meetup and NYTM founder Scott Heiferman stood in the audience in a red hoodie, board member Esther Dyson settled on the window ledge in a #newsfoo t-shirt, and scene staple Gary Sharma wandered about with his sponsored tie (Pivotal Labs and Inkba) as 15 candidates gave their vision of what should change about the largest meetup in New York, which last year incorporated as a nonprofit 501c(6), giving it the power to lobby government, among other things.

The other bold-faced names, as far as New York tech goes, were among the candidates: Eric Friedman, head of business development at Foursquare; Shai Goldman, a 10-year veteran of Silicon Alley Bank who moved to New York a year or so ago; and David Tisch, the most talked about candidate of those who couldn't make it, as he had a prior commitment out of town.

NYTM held its first election for the board last year, when proto-blogger Anil Dash and NYU computer science professor Evan Korth were elected. A few things were different this time. Last year, speeches took place at the Skirball Center in front of the usual 800-some audience instead of the cozy New Work City Soho digs; there were also no women running last year, while this year there are four; and only one board member will be elected, rather than two. "This ties us directly to our membership and holds us accountable," NYTM board chairman Andrew Rasiej told the audience.

Whitney Hess, a user experience designer and NWC resident, almost ran for a seat last year before she realized she had massively overscheduled herself. She was the last candidate to step up to the mic last night, a prepared speech on her iPad, and proceeded to thoroughly critique the NYTM user experience from entry to afterparty, including the hated "hovering" until tickets become available "like a Justin Bieber concert."

Other candidates talked about improving the experience of attendees, broadening NYTM's role as an advocacy group, and making the meetup more welcoming to hackers and new members from the outer boroughs and other communities.

First up to the mic was Ben Kessler of CrowdTap--"you guys might know me as @kessler on Twitter"--followed by longtime NYTM volunteer Brandon Diamond, who dumped his script to the floor in favor of speaking from the heart, promising to bring more hackers into the organization if elected. Mr. Friedman's platform was "always be helping," which he illustrated with a quick survey of who was hiring and who was looking for work. Other highlights included the cosmopolitan Jalak Jobanputra, whose resume includes "NYC 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.," stints in venture capital, government and finance. "It's my goal to evangelize New York as the top tech hub in the world," she said, promising to make NYTM's voice heard in the White House.

Jonathan Askin, a tech law professor at Brooklyn Law School, emphasized NYTM's power to advocate. "We haven't stepped up," he said. "We haven't engaged the government to the extent that we should." Google, Amazon and Facebook are directing government policy on tech, he said, and that doesn't represent the interest of startups.

Murat Aktihangolu, director of Entrepreneurs Roundtable, spoke passionately about making New York more welcoming for startups; Mr. Goldman had a three-point plan: making it easier to move to New York, making sure entrepreneurs have a voice on policy, and reforming the image of New York as a two-trick pony (web and mobile) and getting some attention for cleantech and biotech.

Other candidates who showed up to give a speech included Gregory Schnese of Kikin, Jack Welde, Jesse Landry, June Cohen of TED Media, Luke Haseloff, Matthew Knell and Wei Zhao.

Audience members showed a bias toward the candidates "who showed up." "You just don't like David Tisch," one attendee chastised his friend. "These are community board members," the other pointed out. "Tisch would be better as a board member, don't you think?"

After the talks, the group swigged the Brooklyn Lager and Blue Moon and gobbled their way through several boxes of excellent pizza, talking enthusiastically about New York tech. "I think New York is the best place to start a company!" Mr. Aktihangolu said. New York is an "emerging market," founder Mattan Griffel explained excitedly. Many of the attendees had been to their first NYTM in 2004, 2005, 2006, when the scene was much dinkier, they told Betabeat. Now, Vanity Fair and "The Dylan Ratigan Show" are on the Meetup's press list, managing director Jessica Lawrence told Betabeat. "We should get Betabeat, New York Tech Meetup, Entrepreneurs Roundtable and some cool startups and go to Silicon Valley and recruit!" schemed Mr. Sharma. An entrepreneur in the conversation, Seth Bannon of Amicus, was working on a similar idea (currently in stealth mode), inspired by Paul Graham's recent visit.

Voting for the board seat opened at midnight, and will close December 20. As NYTM adjusts to its new nonprofit status, board members are figuring out their duties (candidates we asked weren't quite sure what they would be doing if elected). Board members serve three year terms.

Demos on deck range from food, drinks, stories, tasks and an "open source framework for creating machine vision appliances." Sweet! We've written about some of them before--Gojee, CalorieCount and Onepager--but others are news to us. Full lineup is below.

Drynks – Journals your experiences with wine, beers, and your favorite liquors, and allows you to share them with friends via Facebook. Presenters: Fernando Garza and Chevon Christie.  Twitter: @binaryred

Framey – Framey makes it offensively simple to integrate video recording into your site. Presenter: Chris Danzig.

Gojee - Curates recipes from top food bloggers around the world and lets you browse them in a gorgeous visual interface. Presenters: Tian He and Mike LaValle. Twitter: @gojee

Ingenuitas – Ingenuitas distributes an open-source framework called SimpleCV for creating machine vision appliances. Presenters: Katherine Scott & Nate Oostendorp. Twitter: @ingenuitasinc

Kikin – Touch browsing... the way it should be! Presenter: Brian Rogers Twitter: @kikin_inc

Moveable Feast Mobile Media - Empowers storytellers to craft richly illustrated, location-specific narratives, and easily publish them to the Moveable app. Presenters: Steve Schultz and Brad Heintz.  Twitter: @moveable_steve

Onepager – The easiest way for a small business to create and manage their website. Presenters: Matthew Moore and Matthew Shampine. Twitter: @OnepagerApp

StoryDesk – An outrageously simple web-based authoring tool for creating and maintaining elegant iPad catalog, presentation and story apps. Presenters: Jordan Stolper. Twitter: @StoryDesk

TaskRabbit – A web and mobile marketplace that safely and reliably connects people and businesses with others in their community to get everyday and skilled Tasks done. Presenters: Leah Busque, Kevin Cruz. Jamie Viggiano.  Twitter: @taskrabbit

Hack of the Month: CalorieCount - An award-winning health and wellness website with more than 2.9 million users that provides members with healthy-living advice, innovative tools and free mobile applications. Presenter: Igor Lebovic.