Category: Current Events

Every week, I compile a list of events for developers, technologists, and tech entrepreneurs in and around the Tampa Bay area. We’ve got a lot of events going on this week, and here they are!

Don’t forget that we’ve got a long weekend coming up thanks to Labor Day. This week’s calendar includes Labor Day Monday.

Do you have an tech or entrepreneurial event in or around the Tampa Bay area that you’d like to see listed here? Drop me a line about it at joey@globalnerdy.com!

Monday, August 28

• Eat, Drink, Cryptocurrency meetup (Barbara S. Ponce Public Library, 6:30 p.m.)
• Anime, Nerds & Geeks — Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky (6:30 p.m.)
• SKILL: Intro To Soldering (Tampa Hackerspace, 6:30 p.m.)
• Toastmasters District 48 — Cool ‘n Confident Toastmasters (SPC – St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus, 6:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.)
• Digital Photo Artists — August Meeting – Photo Critique and Judging (7:00 p.m.)
• SEO Basics from a Professional SEO — Set Up Google Optimized Social Property (Facebook, Twitter, etc) (Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)

Tuesday, August 29

• August 2017 StartUp Xchange (The Mandarin Hide, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.)
• Weekly Open Make Night (Tampa Hackerspace, 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.)
• Women Who Code Tampa / Tampa Bay Agile — All About Agile (AgileThought, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Code Katas — Let’s get together and do some more advanced code challenges! (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m.)
• Toastmasters District 48 — You’re invited to this open Toastmasters Club in South Tampa, Monday’s at 7 p.m! (Unity of Tampa, 7:00 p.m.)

Wednesday, August 30

• 1 Million Cups Tampa — The Messengers:A Podcast Documentary / TSOLife (Mark Sharpe Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, 9:00 a.m.)
• (Monthly) Azure User Group: Intro to CosmosDB by Santosh Hari (AgileThought, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Code for Tampa Bay Special Meeting (SOFWERX, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Toastmasters District 48 — Gulfport Toastmasters (Gulfport Library, 6:15 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Women in Linux — Linux? Understanding Infrastructure. (Intro) (7:00 p.m.)
• Laser Cutter Orientation (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• WordPress New Port Richey — Gravity Forms – an Introduction (Imagine-Invent-Create­, 7:00 p.m.)
• Blockchain Enthusiasts — Blockchain Meetup: Clearwater (Coastal Cantina & Grill, 7:00 p.m.)

Thursday, August 31

• Geek Breakfast (Jimbo’s Pit Bar-B-Q, 8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.)
• Learn Cybersecurity Tampa — Under the Hoodie: Tech Experts Talk Branding Yourself and Landing The Dream Job (SecureSet, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Suncoast.js meetup (The Iron Yard, 6:30 p.m.)
• Suncoast iOS — Creating Rich Custom UI Notifications in iOS 11 (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m.)
• THS Woodworkers Guild (Members Only) (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)

Friday, September 1

• Lean Coffee for All Things Agile (St Petersburg) (Panera, 7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.)
• Café con Tampa — Joshua Frank, Bifurcation to Boulevard: Tampa’s Future Without I-275 (Oxford Exchange, 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.)
• Sarasota Game Jam (Alfred R. Goldstein Library at Ringling College of Art and Design, Friday @ 6:00 p.m. – Sunday @ 7:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Young Professionals — First Friday, Block Party in Downtown St. Pete (6:00 p.m.)
• Homebrew Computing (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)

Saturday, September 2

• Cigar City Multirotors — Meet, Greet and Fly! (Hamilton Park, 10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)
• S.T.E.M. Education Meetup Tampa Bay — STEM Education Open Forum to Assist in Identifying STEM Resources and Tools (The HIVE, 3rd floor, John F. Germany Library, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.)
• Tampa LANFest Labor Day Weekend LAN (Tarpon Springs Recreation Department, 12:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.)

Sunday, September 3

• Tampa Bay Young Professionals — Dim Sum Day (11:30 a.m.)

Monday, September 4 (Labor Day)

• Tampa Bay Young Professionals — Labor Day Beach BBQ (11:00 a.m.)

 

Every week, I compile a list of events for developers, technologists, and tech entrepreneurs in and around the Tampa Bay area. We’ve got a lot of events going on this week, and here they are!

Do you have an tech or entrepreneurial event in or around the Tampa Bay area that you’d like to see listed here? Drop me a line about it at joey@globalnerdy.com!

Monday, August 21

• Millennials Networking Professionals Group — South Tampa Professionals (717 South, in the private dining room, 11:30 a.m.)
• Eclipse get-togethers!
  • Boomer Buddies of Tampa Bay (Spinners Rooftop Revolving Bistro, The Grand Plaza Hotel, St. Pete Beach, 12:45 p.m.)
  • Tampa Bay Moves! (MOSI, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.)
  • Tampa Bay Adventures (SPC – St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
  • Eclipse Watch Party! Art Open Studio and Potluck (Life Enrichment Center, 1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.)
• Cool ‘n Confident Toastmasters (SPC – St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus, 6:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.)
• 3D Printer Orientation (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)

Tuesday, August 22

• Millennials Networking Professionals Group — Power Professional Referral Chapter (Acropol Family Restaurant, Largo, 7:45 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.)
• Bradenton Networking & Education — Souper Tuesday, Everything to know about raising money but afraid to ask (11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.)
• Toastmasters District 48 (FIVE Labs, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.)

• Tampa Game Developers — Let’s see how many GameDevs there are in the Tampa Bay area (PF1 Pro Services, 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Tampa JavaScript Meetup — Code and Chili (Gaspar’s Patio Bar & Grille, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Weekly Open Make Night (Tampa Hackerspace, 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Alexa & Lex Developers — Build your first Alexa Skill (The Iron Yard, 6:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Bitcoineers — Introduction to Crypto-Currency Investing (Grassroots Kava House, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)

Wednesday, August 23

• Tampa Toastmasters Meetup — August 23rd Meeting (Quest Diagnostics, 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.)
• Tampa Bay Wave — OPEN/Women’s Networking Event – 1 Million Cups (Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.)
• 1 Million Cups Tampa — Richter Publishing and Suncoast Compost (Mark Sharpe Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, 9:00 a.m.)
• 1 Million Cups St. Petersburg — HelloAlex.io and Salt Buddy, Inc. (St. Petersburg Greenhouse, 9:00 a.m.)
• Tampa Test Automation — Please RSVP (Vology Office, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay AWS User Group — August Meetup: Serverless Computing (Lambda) (The Iron Yard, 6:00 p.m.)

• Tampa Bay Agile — PO Group August: Bob Galen! Increasing your situational awareness (KForce, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Data Science Group — Project Night: TBDSG Standard Meeting (SOFWERX, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Bitcoineers — SegWit Activation Party! (Bay Harbor Hotel, 6:00 p.m.)
• Gulfport Toastmasters (Gulfport Library, 6:15 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Florida Self-Publishers Monthly Meeting (McAlister’s Deli, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay DevOps — August DevOps Meetup – Achieving Mass Sharing and Reuse with Jenkins (Accenture, 6:30 p.m.)
• Learn to Pick Locks (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Women in Linux — Linux? Understanding Infrastructure. (7:00 p.m.)

Thursday, August 24

• DIY SEO for Small-Medium Businesses St. Pete — Last Meetup – SEO Lesson 6 (The Iron Yard, 5:00 p.m.)
• Network After Work at The Tampa Club (Tampa Club, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Code Lakeland — A/B Testing for Your Website with Pete Schiebel (Catapult, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Tampa SEO and Internet Marketing Monthly Meetup with Steve Scott (Peabody’s Billiards and Games, 6:00 p.m.)
• The Tampa Chapter of the Society for the Exploration of Play — Playing Games at Perkins (Perkins, 6:00 p.m.)
• Fiverr MeetUp at Panera Bread, Feather Sound, Clearwater (Panera, 6:15 p.m.)

• Tampa Bay Python — pygame Workshop (Tampa Bay WaVE, 6:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Area Software Craftsmanship Meetup — Group Discussion (Panera, 6:30 p.m.)
• Florida Salesforce Developer Group — Salesforce DX & CI CD (Bisk Education, 7:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Social Media Meetup — WordPress (Tampa Bay Technology Center, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Suncoast.js — Let’s Build A Simon Game in JavaScript (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m.)
• Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Intro How To Make Money Passively From Home (Panera, Clearwater, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• THS Woodworkers Guild (Members Only) (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)
• Woodshop Safety (Members Only) (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:15 p.m.)

Friday, August 25

• Lean Coffee for All Things Agile (Westshore) (Panera, 7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.)
• Café con Tampa — Paul Seago, No Casinos, Update on The Gambling Landscape (Oxford Exchange, 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.)
• August 2017 Homebrew Hillsborough (Syniverse, 8:30 a.m.)

• Hack Hospitality Hackathon (Station House / The Iron Yard, Friday @ 5:00 p.m. – Sunday @ 8:00 p.m.)
• Learn Cybersecurity Tampa/Tampa Cybersecurity Meetup — Fourth Friday at Rock Brothers (Rock Brothers Brewing, 5:00 p.m.)
• Beer and Bow Ties Benefiting the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay (The Cuban Club. 6:00 p.m.)

Saturday, August 26

• Hack Hospitality Hackathon (Station House / The Iron Yard, Friday @ 5:00 p.m. – Sunday @ 8:00 p.m.)
• Cigar City Multirotors — August MultiGP Points Race (Hamilton Park, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.)
• Digital Divas brunch meet and greet — open to all members (11:00 a.m.)
• Kakkoii-Otaku Clan — The Ancient Magus Bride (subtitled) (2:00 p.m.)
• MR103 Aerial Drone Workshop (Tampa Hackerspace, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
• Game Club Tampa — ETU: The Sanctuary (Grand Arena, 5:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.)

Sunday, August 27

• Hack Hospitality Hackathon (Station House / The Iron Yard, Friday @ 5:00 p.m. – Sunday @ 8:00 p.m.)
• Nerd Night Out — Game Night (Dunkin Donuts, 4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Sew What? (Textile Arts & Crafts) (Tampa Hackerspace, 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)

Every week, I compile a list of events for developers, technologists, and tech entrepreneurs in and around the Tampa Bay area. We’ve got a lot of events going on this week, and here they are!

Do you have an tech or entrepreneurial event in or around the Tampa Bay area that you’d like to see listed here? Drop me a line about it at joey@globalnerdy.com!

Monday, August 14

• Focus On Entrepreneurs Book Club (Panera Westshore, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Data Science Group — Practical Data Science with D3.js, R, and Python (Tampa Bay WaVE, 6:15 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Kids Academy – Intro to Programming (ages 8-12) (The Iron Yard, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• Kids Academy – Intro to HTML/CSS (ages 8-12) (The Iron Yard, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)

Tuesday, August 15

• Tampa Bay Agile — Valpak Agile Tour (Valpak, 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 a.m.)
• Pinellas SQL User Group — Two Shortened Sessions on Temporal Tables and Azure DataCenter (St Pete College – EpiCenter, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Weekly Open Make Night (Tampa Hackerspace, 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay UX — What’s the future of IT in Tampa Bay? Attend this panel discussion to find out! (KForce, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Ybor |> Elixir — Intro to Dialyzer (KForce, 6:30 p.m.)

Wednesday, August 16

• OPEN/FREE Coworking for Veteran Entrepreneurs (FirstWaVE Venture Center, 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 a.m.)
• 1 Million Cups Tampa — Text Our Company / Sandboni (Mark Sharpe Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, 9:00 a.m.)
• 1 Million Cups St. Pete — Startup Tampa Bay / Innclusive (St. Petersburg Greenhouse, 9:00 a.m.)
• Geek Lunch — Lunch @ Burger Monger in St. Pete (Burger Monger, St. Pete, 12:00 p.m.)
• Suncoast Linux Users Group meetup (Pinellas Park Public Library, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Power BI User Group (Microsoft, 6:00 p.m.)
• Free Crash Course- Chrome Developer Tools (The Iron Yard, 6:15 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.)
• Nerd Night Out — Disney Trivia (Peabody’s — Palms Lounge, 6:30 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.)
• Blockchain Meetup: Bitcoin Meetup: Hello $4k! Record breaking month for btc. (Coastal Cantina & Grill, Safety Harbor, 7:00 p.m.)
• Tampa AstroHackers Group Meeting (THS Members Only) (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Qlikview User Group — Monthly ‘Qlik Pick’ Meeting (7:00 p.m.)
• Central Florida CitySec — CigarCitySec Meetup (Cigar City Brewing, 7:00 p.m.)
• Women in Linux — Linux? Understanding Infrastructure. (Intro) (7:00 p.m.)
• NerdBrew Trivia: Alice in Ponderland (Disney Trivia!) (Palms Lounge, 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.)

Thursday, August 17

• Gulf Coast Makers — SOFWERX Tour & Meetup (SOFWERX, 5:00 p.m.)
• Tech on Tap (Whiskey Joes, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Learn Cybersecurity Tampa — Career Conversations: Economic Development and Tech Careers in Tampa (SecureSet, 5:30 p.m.)
• WITI – Tampa Bay (Women in Technology International) — Colors: Identifying your natural behaviors to build more effective relationships (Tribridge, 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• Lean Beer for All Things Agile (Bad Monkey, 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Azure User Group (Microsoft, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Tampa SEO and Internet Marketing Monthly Meetup with Steve Scott (Peabody’s Billiards and Games, 6:00 p.m.)
• Tampa.rb: Tampa Side – Mystery Meetup! (Andy Beverly School, 7:00 p.m.)
• Functional Suncoast — Putting the functional into .NET with F# (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m.)
• Amazon Sellers in the Tampa Bay Area — Grab Dinner and Talk! (7:00 p.m.)
• Florida Salesforce Developer Group — Salesforce DX & CI CD (Bisk Education, 7:00 p.m.)
• PHP as a Social Activity — Meet & Greet (Panera Bread – Westshore, 7:00 p.m.)
• Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Intro How To Make Money Passively From Home (Panera Clearwater, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• THS Woodworkers Guild (Members Only) (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)

Friday, August 18

• Lean Coffee for All Things Agile (Brandon/Riverview)­ (Panera Brandon Town Center, 7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.)
• Café con Tampa — Dr. Todd Wills “Physician’s Assistants in Healthcare Today” (Oxford Exchange, 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.)
• Creative Mornings St. Pete @ The Iron Yard (The Iron Yard, 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.)
• FileMaker Developers Tampa Bay — FileMaker 16 and DevCon Recap (PK Information, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Homebrew Computing (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)

Saturday, August 19

• Women in Linux — #WILinux Summit 2017 _ Virtual Conference (8:00 a.m.)
• St Pete .NET Meetup — Day of TDD (Agile Thought, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Drones — Open Fly Day @ Wesley Chapel (10:00 a.m.)
• Microcontroller Monthly Meetup (M3) (Tampa Hackerspace, 1:00 p.m.)
• Clearwater/St. Petersburg Unity User Group — Game Project Therapy (Perkins Clearwater, 3:00 p.m.)

Sunday, August 20

• Tampa Drones — Open Fly Day – Fly what you have! (Sheffield Disc Golf Park, 11:00 a.m.)
• Kids’ Open Make Day (Tampa Hackerspace, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Blockchain Developers Meetup — Deploy a crowdfunding contract to the Rinkeby testnet (Synoc Lab @ Synergy Internet Business Center, 1:00 p.m.)

Every week, I compile a list of events for developers, technologists, and tech entrepreneurs in and around the Tampa Bay area. We’ve got a lot of events going on this week, and here they are!

Monday, August 7

• Agile2017 in Orlando (Rosen Shingle Creek Resort, Orlando, 9:00 a.m. – Friday 1:00 p.m.)
• Drone Pilots of Tampa Bay Florida (6:00 p.m.)
• Code for Tampa Bay Monthly Meetup (Tampa Bay WaVE, 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.)

Tuesday, August 8

• Entrepreneurs & Startups – Bradenton Networking & Education — Lunch & Learn, Jonathan Glatt, Keyword Research = SEO Success (Station 2 Innovation Center, Bradenton, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.)
• IAMCP (International Association of Microsoft) Tampa Chapter August Meeting – Demystifyin­g Data Science & Machine Learning (Microsoft, 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• Weekly Open Make Night (Tampa Hackerspace, 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.)
• Tampa eMarketing Groups — Learn About Podcasting and How to Monetize Your Interest! (IHOP, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• Ybor Tech — August OpenHack (New World Brewery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Code Katas (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• NerdBrew Trivia: A Quiz of Ice & Fire (Lowry Parcade and Tavern, 8:00 p.m. – 10:45 p.m.)

Wednesday, August 9

• Open/FREE Coworking for Women Tech Entrepreneurs (FirstWaVE Venture Center, 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• 1 Million Cups Tampa — DOW Electronics: Vivint Authorized Reseller Program (Mark Sharpe Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, 9:00 a.m.)
• 1 Million Cups St. Pete — Presence and Data & Sons (St. Petersburg Greenhouse, 9:00 a.m.)
• Tampa Bay UAS and Drone University — Saint Petersburg College UAS Meetup – August Meeting (Tampa International Airport, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Dunedin Design Thinkers — Introductions And Visual Observations (The Living Room on Main, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.)
• The Suncoast Linux Users Group (HDR, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Open Code (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Introduction to Fusion 360 (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)
• Women in Linux — Conference speaking panel (8:00 p.m.)

Thursday, August 10

• Learn Cybersecurity Tampa — Security 101: Metasploit 101 (SecureSet, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.)
• Tampa AWS Users Group — AWS and VMware: A Match Made in the Cloud (The Iron Yard, 6:15 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay WordPress — Current State of UX 2017 with Karla Campos (Socius Marketing, Inc, 6:15 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Front End Design and TBUX Joint Meetup: CSS Grids with Zachary Winnie (The Iron Yard, 6:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Cocoaheads — Build a framework in Swift (ActSoft, Inc., 7:00 p.m.)
• Joomla! User Group Tampa August Meet Up (Microsoft Store – International Plaza, 7:00 p.m. – 8:45 p.m.)
• THS Woodworkers Guild (Members Only) (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)

Friday, August 11

• Lean Coffee for All Things Agile (Waters Location) (Panera, 7:30 a.m.)
• Café con Tampa (Oxford Exchange, 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.)

Saturday, August 12

• Veterans and Non Veterans Entrepreneurship — Utilizing Social Video Platforms to Expose Your Business (Sheraton Suites Tampa Airport Westshore, 12:00 p.m.)
• Mill Class 2/2 (Members Only) (Tampa Hackerspace, 1:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Streaming Community Meetup — Tampa Streamer Meet & Mingle (Buffalo Wild Wings, Brandon, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Nerd Night Out — Game Night! (The Pub Tampa Bay, 7:00 p.m.)

Sunday, August 13

• Collaboration for Augmented Reality Project — First Meetup! Augmented Reality Project (Intermezzo Coffee & Cocktails, 1:00 p.m.)
• Kids’ Open Make Day (Tampa Hackerspace, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
• Sew What? (Textile Arts & Crafts) (Tampa Hackerspace, 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)

Every week, I compile a list of events for developers, technologists, and tech entrepreneurs in and around the Tampa Bay area. We’ve got a lot of events going on this week, and here they are!

Monday, July 31

• Government Blockchain Professionals — Introduction To Blockchain (Doubletree Hotel at Rocky Point, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.)

Tuesday, August 1

• Tampa Hackerspace member meeting (Tampa Hackerspace, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.)
• Tampa iOS Meetup — Let’s build a checklist app (and meet at our new location, Sourcetoad)! (Sourcetoad, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Alexa & Lex Developers — Building Podcasting and Audio Skills For Amazon Alexa (Florida Funders, 6:30 p.m.)
• Code for Tampa Bay Brigade — Let’s carpool to Code for Orlando Demo Day (Canvs, 6:30 p.m.)
• St Pete .NET Meetup — Introduction to HPC & Azure Batch (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Android Developers Group — Data Persistence in Android with Room & How to be an Android Expert (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)

Wednesday, August 2

• Open/FREE Coworking for Latino Tech Entrepreneurs (Tampa Bay WaVE’s FirstWaVE Venture Center, 8:00 a.m.)
• 1 Million Cups Tampa — 5 Star Valet Trash and New Box Products (Mark Sharpe Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, 9:00 a.m.)
• Tampa Cloud Foundry Meetup — Cloud Foundry at Verizon & Kenny Bastani – on Spring & MSA (Verizon Tech Center, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• JPMorgan Chase Women in Technology Networking Event (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Technology Networking Meetup (Ulele, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Scrum Masters Guild – August Meetup (Vology, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Free crash course: Intro to React (The Iron Yard, 6:15 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.)
• ReactJS Tampa Bay — Server Side Rendering (SSR) in React Using Next.js (Exzeo, 6:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Artificial Intelligence Meetup — AI/ Robotics/ Machine Learning (Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Blockchain Meetup: Clearwater (Kahuna’s Bar and Grill, 7:00 p.m.)
• Open Code (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.)

Thursday, August 3

• Tampa C# and .NET Coffee and Code (Ginger Beard Coffee, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.)
• Veteran Career Fair (New Horizons, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.)
• Metrocon (Tampa Convention Center, 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.)
• Learn Cybersecurity Tampa — Beginner’s Intro to Capture The Flag (SecureSet, 5:30 p.m.)
• WordPress St. Petersburg — Grow Beyond Posts & Pages: Intro to the Pods Framework (The Iron Yard, 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
• Peerlyst Tampa Meetup (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Drupal Users Group (Panera @ Ulmerton Road, Clearwater, 6:00 p.m.)
• Suncoast.js — JavaScript The Bad Parts and PureScript in 45 Minutes (The Iron Yard, 7:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Hackerspace Woodworkers Guild (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)
• Tampa Bay Young Professionals (23 – 39) — Let’s cool down at IceBurg (Thai rolled Ice Cream in St. Pete) (IceBurg, 7:00 p.m.)

Friday, August 4

• Lean Coffee for All Things Agile (St Petersburg) (Panera @ Ulmerton Road, Clearwater, 7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.)
• Café con Tampa — Peter Scorsch, publisher of FloridaPolitics.com and St. Petersblog (Oxford Exchange, 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.)
• Metrocon (Tampa Convention Center, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m.)
• Tampa Bay Young Professionals — First Friday, Block Party in Downtown St. Pete (6:00 p.m.)
• Homebrew Computing (Tampa Hackerspace, 7:00 p.m.)

Saturday, August 5

• Metrocon (Tampa Convention Center, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m.)
• Cigar City Multirotors — Meet, Greet and Fly! (Hamilton Park, 10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)
• Tampa Hackerspace mill class (1/2) (Tampa Hackerspace, 10:30 a.m.)
• The Suncoast Humanist Society Meetup — The Internet of Things (Dunedin Public Library, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
• Nerd Night Out — Largo Game Night (Waypoint 6 Tavern & Geekery, 7:30 p.m.)

Sunday, August 6

• Metrocon (Tampa Convention Center, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.)
• August Dim Sum Day (11:30 a.m.)
• Tampa Bay Blockchain Developers Meetup — Create a Hello World smart contract and deploy to the testnet (Synoc Lab @ Synergy Internet Business Center, 1:00 p.m.)

I’ll be at tonight’s info session for Tampa’s upcoming Hack Hospitality hackathon at The Attic (500 East Kennedy Blvd., 4th floor), and you should be there too!

What is “Hack Hospitality”?

Hack Hospitality is a hackathon where participants come up with solutions to the problems that leading companies in Tampa Bay’s hospitality industry are trying to solve. The plan is to bring together the best builders and problem solvers in Tampa Bay’s emerging technology community with select companies in hospitality and come up with ideas, strategies, applications, and technologies to solve real problems that our local hospitality industry is facing.

In case you were wondering, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that as of June 2017, Leisure and Hospitality accounts for 154,000 jobs in the Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater area, which is about 12% of total non-farm wage and salary employment in the area.

Hack Hospitality will take place from Friday, August 25 through Sunday, August 27 at The Iron Yard in St. Petersburg.

What’s in it for participants? What’s in it for the hospitality industry?

For participants, Hack Hospitality is an opportunity to solve real problems and build useful technology in an innovative environment with reputable collaborators. Our coders and problem solvers will be supplied with all of the food, drinks, swag, and resources they could want so that they are not only productive, but also happy. At the end of the hackathon, participants could walk away as owners of valuable products which can be leveraged with our partner companies. Most importantly, winners go home with huge prizes, both cash and otherwise.

For hospitality companies, Hack Hospitality is a chance to crowdsource revolutionary ideas, strategies, and technology from our community while engaging with top developer and business talent. Companies could walk away with new technology, partners, employees and public recognition for being an innovative leader in the region who embraces technology and supports the individuals and nonprofits that create positive change.

What’s happening at tonight’s info session?

Tonight’s info session is a change for people interested in participating in Hack Hospitality to learn more about:

• the hackathon
• the prizes offered
• the hackathon’s partner companies, which includes Sourcetoad, where I work
• details about the real business challenges that will be presented at the hackathon so that you can prepare

The Hack Hospitality info session takes place tonight (Wednesday, July 26) at 6:00 p.m. at The Attic (500 East Kennedy Blvd., 4th floor, one floor above Tampa Bay WaVE). The café will be serving drink specials and there will be light snacks.

Who’s behind Hack Hospitality?

Hack Hospitality is a part of Tampa Bay Hackathon, an event series run by Startup Tampa Bay. They host events designed to empower and inspire our community, namely, Startup Weekend Tampa Bay, Startup Weekend Youth, Tampa Bay Startup Week, Tampa Bay Hackathon, Startup Socials, and various workshops. They’re entirely volunteer driven and community backed, and are always looking for sponsors, partners, and collaborators of all kinds who share the belief that empowering entrepreneurs and connecting the business community will shape the future of Tampa Bay.

Sourcetoad is where I work, and it’s also sponsoring Hack Hospitality. When we’re not doing custom enterprise development, making customizable middleware, or creating digital business models for our clients, we’re active in helping build up and support the Tampa Bay tech community.

Click the graph to see it at full size.

CBRE’s Tech Talent Quality vs. Cost Analysis graph (shown above) is getting a lot of discussion among my Canadian techie friends and fellow Canadian techie expats living in the U.S. because it shows something we’ve been telling everyone for years: for the best bang for your labor buck, you really want to go with a Canadian techie (especially if you’re spending US dollars; at the time of writing, $1CAD = $0.80USD).

It also shows that Florida is showing some promise: out of 47 metro areas in the graph, 5 of them are in the Sunshine state. Listed by increasing x, where the x-axis is labor quality, which in turn is defined in the graph as “concentration of software engineers/developers with 3+ years experience that have earned degrees from the top 25 Computer Information Science programing in the U.S. and Canada as rated by U.S. News*, 2017”, these places are:

1. Jacksonville
2. Tampa
3. Orlando
4. Miami
5. Fort Lauderdale

* Take the precise positions of areas on the graph with a grain of salt. There are some oddities on both axes. For starters, I find it hard to believe that the average tech salary in much pricier Miami is lower than in Tampa (or Madison!). As for “labor quality”, that’s derived from U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges Guide, whose rankings can be bought and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Toronto and Vancouver also place in North America’s largest tech talent pools. At 4th place, Toronto is just behind Washington, D.C., which in turn is beaten only by the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. Toronto has considerably more tech talent than the next three cities to metros after it: Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, and surprisingly, Seattle (home of both Microsoft and Amazon):

All this comes from CBRE’s Scoring Tech Talent in North America 2017 report, which they describe as “a comprehensive analysis of labor market conditions, cost and quality for highly skilled tech workers in the U.S. and Canada.” It takes the 50 largest markets and ranks them using several criteria, including “competitive advantages and appeal to tech employers and tech talent”, and “provides insight into the quality of tech talent, their demographics and how tech talent growth patterns are impacting cities and real estate markets”.

I found out about the report via my friend, startup/marketing/operations expert April Dunford, who posted the graph and table above on her Facebook account. You can find the report here, but it’s available only to people with a CBRE account.

If you were wondering why you haven’t heard of a technology organization called CBRE, it’s because they’re not in tech. CBRE Group is a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate company — in fact, after acquiring part of ING in 2011, they’re the largest real estate investment manager in the world. Knowing that, it becomes clear why a real estate company would research tech talent and where to find it: they make money from office space, and a good market for that product is well-paid white collar workers who gravitate towards perks like premium office space.

Toronto and Vancouver skylines, as seen from the water.

I’ll leave it to other people, especially my techie friends, to discuss the meaning of Toronto’s and Vancouver’s rankings discuss CBRE’s Scoring Tech Talent in North America 2017 report at length. I’ll just say that I cut my professional software development teeth in Toronto, and during my time at Microsoft and Shopify, spent a fair bit of time in Vancouver’s tech scene. Having seen both these cities, I can attest to their techie bang for the buck, and I’ve watched how they’ve grown from relative software backwaters to overlooked gems to software powerhouses…and I took notes (a number of which you’ll see in my blogs, Global Nerdy and The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century).

University of Tampa’s distinctive minarets, as seen from across the river in Curtis Hixon Park.

I’m now in Tampa, and I want to take the lessons of Toronto and Vancouver and apply them to my new home. Tampa has its own advantages, such as a sub-tropical climate, low cost of living, and a “brain gain” resulting from hundreds of thousands of people moving to the Orlando-Tampa corridor every year. Tampa also has its challenges, including geographical fragmentation thanks to Tampa Bay, the deadly combo of automobile overdependence and a lot of bad urban design decisions, and a significant chunk of the population that just wants a big lawn, a nearby mall with big box stores and chain restaurants, and a nap.

The strong Tampa/Florida presence on the Tech Talent Quality vs. Cost Analysis is an indicator is that something’s happening here in the Sunshine State. We can choose to maintain this momentum, make the best use of our brainpower and location and move ourselves farther right (and hey, up) on the graph, or we can choose to do the safe, lazy thing and rely solely on tourism. I’m choosing the former, and plan to take what I learned from being in Toronto and Vncouver to work with local like-minded people to help bring it about.