Kalamuna: A Brief History
12 years of web design. Lifetimes of purpose.
Kalamuna grew a lot in its first 12 years, and we’re excited to continue to improve the lives of others. Our timeline shows some key moments in our history that led us to where we are today.
Activists, entrepreneurs and do-gooders Mike Pirog, Alex Reynolds, Andrew Ward, and Andrew Mallis partner at Revolution Cafe in San Francisco to birth a web development agency called Kalamuna. The founders’ zeal for technology is equal to their passion for what it can do for people.
Kalamuna comes into its own through its first cohesive brand identity. Members give much thought to the logo, devised to communicate inclusivity, holistic thinking, and broad-mindedness.
Kalamuna launches its first enterprise site for Greenbiz.com, a media and events organization that accelerates the just transition to a clean economy.
The agency releases Kalabox—a free, open-source tool that helps Drupal developers code, test, and go live with ease. And, with the help of over 200 Kickstarter backers, a Docker-based version 2 is eventually released. Kalabox now lives on as Lando.
We release the first public version of Kalastatic, an open source, component-based prototyping framework and static site generator. It will allow us to later collaborate better with internal teams at organizations like the American Foundation for the Blind and the Smithsonian.
In celebration of Drupal 6’s end of life, the team brings the global Drupal community together for a funeral parade at DrupalCon in New Orleans. Led by a second-line band, we weave through city streets to a venue where speeches ensue and blue cupcakes are consumed out of a coffin.
Our first AI work is made public, demonstrating how robots can curate images, so website editors can build community instead of policing content.
We use our DrupalCon Nashville exhibition booth to promote attendee-chosen nonprofits, donating to each org honored on our booth’s wall. After glimpsing participants’ passion to effect positive change, we shift our event budgets to focus on interactive charitable giving over swag.
Kalamuna partners with the American Foundation for the Blind to relaunch their new site, further reinforcing long standing accessibility commitments in our design process.
In response to George Floyd's murder, Kalamuna donates 400 hours to support nonprofit orgs at the forefront of social justice. We create a job board for Black queer and trans tech workers, an online tool for civil rights advocates, a digital memorial for victims of police violence, and more.
We open our Toronto office, expanding our Canadian employee roster and the impact they can have. The team now includes more multi-national representation, offering diverse perspectives on key issues like health, education, and the environment.
To cultivate camaraderie among our global team, we meet for our first-ever, all-agency summit on the island of Wasan, in Ontario, Canada. The summit reinforces our shared values, powering our projects going forward.
We evolve our charitable practice at DrupalCon Portland and collaborate with a nonprofit serving local youth experiencing homelessness. After learning that music figures heavily in youth coping, we ask conference attendees to share a song that got them through a hard time and record a message about it. We share these songs and messages with the youth on donated MP3 players.
Kalamuna works proudly with housing-related orgs Small Housing British Columbia, King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. Our website design and development supercharges their efforts to get gentle-density homes built, find shelter for those experiencing homelessness, and locate homes for newcomers.
We transform our conference booths into philanthropy hubs, building upon our tradition of charitable giving at industry gatherings. We invite Nonprofit Technology Conference and DrupalCon attendees to co-create vibrant mosaics at our sponsor spaces to promote their chosen charities.
