Hacks/Hackers Miami officially launched Saturday, April 13, when Stephanie Rosenblatt, a full-stack developer with a long-standing love of journalism, led about 25 members through a 3-hour MySQL bootcamp at the University of Miami School of Communication.

The group gained hands-on experience creating tables, importing and formatting data, and performing simple queries via phpMyAdmin. Participants got a working understanding of basic syntax and data structure and saw many examples of how MySQL powers web apps, news and data projects.

Participants came from as far as Naples, Fla., for the meetup, and many said they were excited about the potential to learn more. South Florida Sun Sentinel reporter Ben Wolford offered this feedback: “That was just what I was hoping for. I learned enough to know how much I don’t know about MySQL. In other words, I have the concept and the basic tools and now I can teach myself.”

Rosenblatt, who formerly worked at the Miami Herald developing online applications for the paper’s investigative team, said Miami is primed for tech and journalism collaboration. “Journalists have great problems for developers to solve, and once you do journalism, it never leaves you,” she said.

Rosenblatt also contributed to the University of Florida’s Journalism Now Podcast and has taught courses at Florida Society of News Editors, WordCamp and BarCamp conferences. She is currently a technical producer and senior developer for an ad technology startup in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Hacks/Hackers Miami is working to build ties among local tech and journalism communities in a variety of ways, including through educational events like MySQL bootcamp, said group organizer Dan Grech, radio news director of WLRN-Miami Herald News. In the next few months, the group will host several demo and show-and-tell events and will participate in Miami’s National Day of Civic Hacking.