On the afternoon of Saturday May 22, 2010 a lawyer, a civil rights advocate and some politically inclined members of NetIP Seattle got together to talk about one of the most controversial issues in the United States today: Immigration reform.

South Asians, particularly Indians today face the longest queues for Green Cards thereby limiting their careers, marriages and movement. To put it into perspective, the Indians who applied for Green cards in 2001 are just now being able to claim them.

NetIP Seattle hosted a charity mixer on April 17 at Parlor Billiards and Spirits from 6:30-9:30pm. We had quite a turn out, about 75 attendees. All proceeds from the mixer were channeled toward the Grameen Foundation, in an effort to support NetIP North America's comunity service efforts. We raised $360 for Grameen to support their Power and Micro-finance projects in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in India.

Marketing for the event started about 3 weeks before the event through the Facebook event, facebook messages, emails on Microsoft, Amazon email lists, SALSA mailing lists etc. All the board members actively helped promote the event which is why we had quite a big turnout!

We had a wonderful Dinner Circle event at Assaggio Italian restaurant in Seattle on Tuesday April 27th.  We had about fourteen members show up and were able to mingle and get to know people better in a smaller setting.  The restaurant had an inviting atmosphere and the staff and food were amazing.  We also had the fortunate opportunity of having a young professional Neil Patel come speak to us about his life experiences and becoming a millionaire in his twenties.