It all started with an email address.
There I was, working for a great company doing a job I truely enjoyed. One day, we get the news. The company will be closing permanently. Looks like it's time to polish up the resume and start looking for a new opportunity. The issue was, I hated my email address. It was too long to be professional, and just sounded horrible. After spending hours on different email providers, I finally decided to do what any self-respecting computer nerd would do: register my own domain and create whatever email address I wanted. And thus, Vitkar Development was born.
Then the word got out.
Family, friends, colleagues and online collaborators heard the news, and the comments came in. "What a great idea!", "I wish I had thought of that!", "I want a new email address!". The geeks had spoken, and they were in. But what's in a domain name? "We" now had a domain, but what would we do with it? Portfolios, projects, resumes and everything else under the sun was being discussed, before a domain was even registered. The snowball grew and grew, but without any purpose. At this point is was just my personal domain that my friends wanted to move in on.
But what is a Vitki?
If we were actually going to do this, we had to decide who we were and what we did. I had no intention of opening it up to whatever anyone wanted. This was meant to be professional after all. We did all have some things in common. We were all makers, developers, and DiY enthusiasts. This gave us a unique perspective on how to achieve something. Each of us were also passionate about environmental responsibility. Together, we formed a community of like-minded individuals who shared a passion for engineering, creativity, and environmental awareness.
Aren't there already a million platforms out there for this?
There are. And if nothing else, the one thing the Vitkar can always agree on is that social media is evil. Be it lack of privacy, the constant ads, or "influencers", we all have a reason to have deleted our accounts. This platform will allow us to maintain privacy for the more paranoid amongst us, collarate effectively with each other, and publicly publish what we like without the hassle of social media.
What's with the Viking thing?
Vikings rock! The Norse were the ultimate combination of innovation, adaptability, and independence. As King Ecbert once said, “Their ships can sail the open ocean… and yet they can also sail up rivers?” Additionally, our local comparative theology major and particle physicist have a long going conversation about Norse cosmology and string theory are the same thing. Also keep in mind that the majority of us are code monkeys, solder jockeys, and hardware hackers, not artists. The Futhark runes allows us to quickly create graphics that can symblize anything and stay "on brand", without a lot of artistic talent.