Category: Current Events

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, July 6, 2020)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date July 4, 2020

Hello, Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds — here’s hoping you had a safe and happy 4th of July.

Here’s the list of the week’s online-only events for techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds based in an around the Tampa Bay area.

Keep an eye on this post; I update it when I hear about new events, it’s always changing. Stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

This week’s events

Monday, July 6

Tuesday, July 7

Wednesday, July 8

Thursday, July 9

Friday, July 10

Computer Coach Training Center — ATS (Applicant Tracking System): Everything You Need to Know @ 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM

Saturday, July 11

Sunday, July 12

No tech, entrepreneur, or nerd events have been posted for this day…yet!

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!

Local hero: Mike Dominick and his tech podcast, The Mike Dominick Show

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date July 3, 2020

Mike Dominick, who runs The Mad Botter — which develops automation/integration software — moved to the Tampa Bay area three years ago. It’s been my experience that Tampa Bay techies don’t do things halfway, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that in addition to the day job, he also has a technology- and open source-focused podcast named The Mike Dominick Show.

I had the privilege of being the guest for Episode 25 of the Mike Dominick Show, which we recorded yesterday afternoon (that’s its player above), and it was a fun conversation that covered:

The Toronto tech scene
Taking up the accordion
How I got into developer evangelism
Learning iOS programming via raywenderlich.com and then joining them
Remote work and the pandemic
WWDC 2020 and SwiftUI, Python and Burning Man
Windows Phone and my time as a Windows Phone Champ
What I’ve been doing while looking for work
The hidden opportunities that come with having to stay inside

Scrabble tiles in a tile holder spelling 'QUESTIONS' Mike ends each podcast with two questions — one tough and one easy. The tough question he asked me was “What question should I have asked you that I didn’t?” You’ll have to listen to hear how I answered that one.

Don’t just listen to my episode — be sure to check out previous ones, including these ones that I’ve enjoyed on my daily bike rides:

Episode 24: Mike’s wife, Lara Ann Dominick, on how she spent her lockdown: Writing a book! If you’re looking for quarantine inspiration, check this one out.
Episode 22: Sean McBride, West Point grad and Army veteran who made the transition to software development via a coding bootcamp.
Episode 16: Matt Vaughn of Full Stack Talent, a Tampa Bay tech recruitment company, on the Tampa Bay tech scene, and how he got into his line of work.

Current Events Programming What I’m Up To

RW Community Care: Free community support for mobile developers (and aspiring mobile developers, too!)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date July 3, 2020

One of the reasons I write for raywenderlich.com — the premier mobile developer tutorial site — is that they’re wonderful people to work with, because they’re such good people. And as good people, they’ve put together something to help developers during this time of pandemic and quarantine: RW Community Care. It’s a series of office hours, livestreams, bootcamps, and more, running until August 22 — and all events are 100% free!

Here’s what RW Community care offers…

Read iOS Apprentice for free!

I learned iOS programming back in 2012 by reading and doing the exercises in an earlier edition of iOS Apprentice, which was written by Matthijs Hollemans. While I’d done some mobile development as a Windows Phone Champ during my time as a developer evangelist at Microsoft, it was this book that set me on my path as a mobile developer.

I owe a lot to this book, which is why it was a big honor to co-author the eighth edition with Eli Ganim. For the summer, you can read it online for free at RW Community Care. Whether you’re completely new to programming or — like me, back in 2012, experienced at programming but new to iOS development — you should check out iOS Apprentice on RW Community Care!

RW Talks

RW Talks happen weekly, cover all sorts of topics that mobile developers will find interesting, ranging from the deeply technical to the inspiring. Upcoming talks include:

Jul 8: Building UIs in Android using Jetpack Compose by Dean Djermanović
Jul 15: Building Immersive AR Experiences with RealityKit
Jul 29: Building SwiftUI Apps with Firebase by Peter Friese

You can also see past talks:

How To Run A Remote Company by Ray Wenderlich
The Future of Mobile: Android/iOS, Flutter, and Native by Kevin Moore, Kevin Galligan, Nishant Srivastava, and Joe Howard
How To Build a SwiftUI Framework… and make it work with Swift Package Manager, Cocoapods, and Carthage! by David Okun
Increase Your Product Quality Through Accessibility by Victoria Gonda
Everything You (Never) Wanted to Know about Making Coffee at Home by Marin Benčević
Writing Reliable Tests in iOS by Mani Ramezan
MVVM Structure with Android Architecture Components by Evana Margain Puig

RW Chat

Can’t attend some of the other live events, or prefer to collaborate on discussions as a community? Or maybe you’re more the type to hash out challenges or problems with a group of like-minded developers? There’s a Discord server that you can join!

Office Hours

Not everyone has easy access to a senior mobile developer, especially when everyone seems so busy these days and our teams are more physically separate then ever before.

Good news: Office Hours are the next best thing to having a senior developer right next to you!

Review My Stuff

Want a senior member of the development community to look over your current project, run a critical eye over your professional résumé, or review some code you’ve been struggling with? This program is designed to do just that.

If you need someone to help you with deeper questions on your particular project, or to lend a critical eye to your resume or job search, you need Review My Stuff!

Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, June 29, 2020)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date June 27, 2020

Hello, Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds! Welcome to the Fourth of July edition of the list! Here’s the list of the week’s online-only events for techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds based in an around the Tampa Bay area.

The Fourth falls on a Saturday this year, and when combined with COVID-19, that means that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday don’t have much going on.

Keep an eye on this post; I update it when I hear about new events, it’s always changing. Stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay — and have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

When will this list include in-person events?

It could be a while. I’ll let this picture and video do all the explaining…

Monday, June 29

Tuesday, June 30

Wednesday, July 1

Thursday, July 2

Friday, July 3 / Saturday, July 4 / Sunday, July 5

At the time of writing there aren’t any online tech, entrepreneur, or nerd events in the Tampa Bay area for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Given that it’s the 4th of July weekend, that shouldn’t be too surprising. Enjoy the long weekend, and get your America on!

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

Join the mailing list!

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!

Current Events Players

Robert Blacklidge and the Feeding the Future hackathon: This weekend, online

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date June 24, 2020

Robert Blacklidge

You can’t talk about the Tampa Bay startup scene for long before the name “Robert Blacklidge” comes up. You’ll often see him at Tampa Bay tech and entrepreneur events, and when he’s not organizing or facilitating hackathons, he’s winning at them. One of his creations, Course Align, made it all the way to finals at Startup Bus 2017 (be sure to check out Gimlet Media’s Startup podcast episodes where they follow the Bus, including the creation of Course Align).

He’s also been bringing tech events and amenities to his home, Lakeland (about 35 miles east of Tampa). Thanks to his work, Lakeland has its editions of 1 Million Cups, Startup Grind, and Techstars Startup Weekend. He also co-founded CO.STARTERS, a 9-week program that teaches entrepreneurs to achieve their long-term goals.

This weekend, he’ll be a mentor at the Feeding the Future online hackathon.

Feeding the Future: A FoodTech hackathon

The world’s food chain supply chains have been greatly disrupted by COVID-19 and its cascading effects. Most of these disruptions will have unpredictable long-term lasting effects on our food systems. The Feeding the Future hackathon’s challenges are all centered around solutions to address and counter these disruptions.

The challenges are:

Sustainable farm-to-fork solutions. How can we use digital technologies to build a more resilient and agile food supply chain for local producers and farmers after CoVid-19 using sustainable farm2fork solutions and further increase e-commerce and home delivery services? How can we apply dynamic models to support seasonal trade and preparation tools for all parts in the food chain?
Reducing carbon “food”prints. The importance of food within cities and urban design is central from several angles. There is a need to transform our urban food systems with a focus on sustainability and resilience.
Make a new and tasty fish product. Baltic Herring is a tasty, small fish found in abundance in the Baltic Sea. Increasing it’s consumption can help lower our carbon footprint. What kind of food product(s) can we create using the Baltic Herring to increase consumption?
Increase Finnish/African food trade. (The hackathon is being organized from Finland.) Africa is an untapped potential market. Finland is known for its world class research in food engineering. What kind of product or services can be utilized to help increase the quality and quantity of food export between Finland and Africa?

Feeding the Future’s kickoff/orientation session happens tomorrow (Thursday, June 25th) at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Here’s how you can join in:

Join as a
As a
As a
As a

NOTE: You can only compete in the Hackathon as a TEAM of two or more members. If you don’t have yet a team, join the hackathon’s Discord community to find one.

Tags hackathon

Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, June 22, 2020)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date June 20, 2020

Greetings, Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds! Welcome to the June 22, 2020 edition of the list! Here’s this week’s list of online-only events for techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds based in an around the Tampa Bay area. Keep an eye on this post; I update it when I hear about new events, it’s always changing. Stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

When will this list include in-person events?

The answer remains, quite emphatically: NOT JUST YET.

Consider the recent spike in cases, as reported in the news:

With this spike in mind, I’m opting to list only those events that I know are online only for the time being.

Monday, June 22

Tuesday, June 23

Wednesday, June 24

Thursday, June 25

Friday, June 26

Saturday, June 27

Sunday, June 28

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

Join the mailing list!

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!

Current Events Hardware

I’m a little worried about this episode of “Black Mirror” (or: Boston Dynamics’ robot “dog” is now commercially available)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date June 16, 2020

It’s official — if you’ve got $74,500 burning a hole in your pocket and the possibility of turning the world into one of the bleakest episodes of Black Mirror doesn’t faze you, you can order Boston Dynamics’ the Spot Explorer development kit from shop.bostondynamics.com.

The kit includes the following:

1 “Spot” robo-dog / soulless future ravager of humanity
2 batteries
1 battery charger
1 tablet controller
1 robot case
1 power case
Python client packages for Spot APIs.

Wait a minute…it’s programmable in Python? Okay, now I’m very interested…

For more, see this new ad for Spot: