Category: Meetups

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Current Events Meetups Tampa Bay

StartupBus Warm-Up at Green Bench — Tuesday, July 19th!

The Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer meetup is coming back, starting Tuesday, July 19th at 6:30 p.m. at Green Bench Brewing, where we’ll be throwing a warm-party for StartupBus Florida!

StartupBus is no ordinary hackathon. It doesn’t happen in an afternoon in the comfortable surroundings of a coworking space, cafe, or corporate office. It takes THREE DAYS. On a BUS. With all the regular problems posed by a road trip (such as unreliable power and spotty wifi) as well as additional challenges that the organizers have devised. It’s been described as “Navy SEAL training for techies and entrepreneurs.”

While on the bus, the participants — we call them buspreneurs — form teams, come up with an idea for a startup, and build the business and the software that supports it. At the same time, they’re working on a pitch for that business, and practicing the pitch regularly.

After three days when the bus reaches its destination city — Austin, Texas — the real competition begins. StartupBus Florida’s bus will meet up with the other 4 buses coming from different parts of the U.S. and Mexico, and all the teams will pitch in front of judges in the semifinals. A handful of the best teams will go on to the finals, where they’ll pitch to the finals judges. And one will emerge victorious.

StartupBus Florida traditionally departs from Tampa Bay, and we have a solid track record. We had two teams make it to the finals in 2017 and 2019, and our alumni have gone on to start their own companies, build notable careers, and help grow Tampa’s tech scene. This will be the first StartupBus event since 2019, and we’re excited to be back!

StartupBus Florida doesn’t do what it does alone — it’s backed by our favorite hometown heroes: our sponsors! They are…

  • CoreX Legal, the legal firm built for startups. CoreX know the tech and legal side of all things startup and blockchain.
  • Hillsborough County’s EDi2, where EDi2 is short for “Economic Development Innovation Initiative.” Edi2 provide grant funding and support for events and opportunities that help Hillsborough County’s entrepreneurs become successful.

Join us at the StartupBus Warm-Up! Come meet StartupBus Florida’s buspreneurs (contestants) and conductors (coaches), sponsors, alumni, and fans at Green Bench Brewing in St. Pete.

Questions you might have about the event

Questions you might have about StartupBus:

  • When does StartupBus take place? The event starts with a 3-day bus ride that runs from the morning of Wednesday, July 27 to the early evening on Friday, July 29. The final two events happen in the destination city, with the semifinals on Saturday, July 30 and the finals on Sunday, July 31.
  • Where is the destination city? It’s Austin, Texas.
  • How many people will be on the bus? It varies from year to year, but typically there are 2 to 3 dozen buspreneurs (participants) on the bus, along with 2 – 4 conductors (coaches).
  • How many buses will there be? There will be 4 in total. They’ll depart from Cincinnati, Mexico City, Silicon Valley, and Tampa Bay.
  • I have tech/creative/business skills and want to be a buspreneur. How can I join? Sign up on the StartupBus “Apply” page, select “Florida” and use the code JOEY22.
  • How do I find out more about StartupBus and StartupBus Florida? For starters, there’s the StartupBus site. Tampa Bay’s own tech blog, Global Nerdy, has a number of articles on StartupBus.
Categories
Current Events Meetups Tampa Bay

“Meet Me in the Metaverse” happens online on Thursday, July 14 at 7 p.m.!

Hey, techies from Tampa Bay and beyond — are you interested in any of the following:

  • StartupBus
  • The Metaverse
  • Web3

We’re holding an online meetup, Meet Me in the Metaverse, on Thursday, July 14th from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in a web-based virtual reality space to discuss the topics above, and you’re all invited to join us! Register here to attend the event.

This isn’t going to be a Zoom or Teams meeting, but a VR meeting. And don’t worry — you won’t need VR gear — any computer with a browser will do. I took the meetup’s VR environment for a test drive, and it presented itself like a first-person shooter, minus the shooting, where you use the W, A, S, and D keys to move and the mouse to change the direction you’re facing.

Here are a couple of screenshots of what I saw during my quick exploratory run:

My first view of the Metaverse venue. Tap to view at full size.
Walking into the lobby. Tap to view at full size.
The view from the top floor. Tap to view at full size.

I’ll be there — join me! Once again, that’s Thursday, July 14th, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and you can register here.

Categories
Current Events Meetups Tampa Bay

Scenes from the 2022 Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic

Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic flag flying

Last Monday, a good number of the Tampa Bay tech scene got together for a good time for a good cause: the Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic.

Golfers at the Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic practicing on the driving range

Organized by Tampa Bay Tech — Tampa Bay’s non-profit technology council, whose mission is to make “The Other Bay Area” a flourishing tech hub — it took place at Carrollwood Country Club and the title sponsor was Okta, where I work (remember, Auth0 is now an Okta product unit)!

Golf carts lined up and filled with players ready to play in the Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic

The proceeds from the tournament went to the recently-founded Tampa Bay Tech Foundation, whose purpose is to radically connect area students and job seekers to opportunities in the technology community. The Foundation’s initiatives include:

  • Internship development programs
  • Scholarships
  • Talent-focused programming
  • Workforce gap research
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is jill-st-thomas.jpgThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is karen-popp.jpeg

I was there as a volunteer and got to see Tampa Bay Tech’s CEO Jill St. Thomas and Member Engagement Manager Karen Popp.

Since Okta was the title sponsor, it was only fitting that Chris St. Thomas, Strategic Account Director at Okta, gave a quick opening address:

Chris St. Martin giving the opening announcement at the Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic

I sharpened my credit card-processing skills selling “super tickets”, which entitled the bearer to raffle tickets, extra drink tickets, entry into a couple of contests, and most importantly, a mulligan:

Joey deVilla on teh credit card machine at the Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic

Here’s what Tampa Bay Tech’s Karen Popp posted in LinkedIn about the event:

Thank-you to all who participated in the Tampa Bay Tech Golf Classic presented by title sponsor Okta. We’ve got the best members, sponsors, guests and volunteers! It was a sensational event and raised significant funding for our Foundation. Save the date for next year, 4/17/23. Contact me if you’d like to reserve your sponsorship today! I appreciate the #radicallyconnected community we’re building in Tampa Bay!

#techforgood #techcommunity #golfevent

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Current Events Meetups Tampa Bay

Tech professionals – UX/Devs networking meetup this Wednesday!

Hey, Tampa area techies! There’s a “Tech Professionals UX/Devs Networking” meetup happening this Wednesday, and Anitra and I will be attending!

Here’s the event description from their Meetup page:

Hi all!

We are a group of tech professionals in the Tampa Bay Area. Designers, Developers and anything in-between. Whether an industry veteran or just getting started in your career, come join us for casual networking over food and drinks!

We will meet outside of Lala’s Sangria Bar on Wednesday, April 6 at 6PM.

See you there!

La La’s Sangria Bar is in Channelside — 203 N Meridian Avenue. It’ll be an outdoor gathering, which should greatly reduce any COVID risk.

Be sure to register for the event on their Meetup page!

We’ll see you there!

Quick summary

Categories
Current Events Meetups Programming Tampa Bay

This Wednesday: the Downtown Tampa Software Developers meetup!

There’s a new tech meetup here in “The Other Bay Area” — the Downtown Tampa Software Developers — and I’m planning on attending their next meetup (and getting some dinner) this Wednesday, March 30th, at 7:00 p.m.!

Organized by Michael Berlet, it’s a weekly meetup for software developers at Tampa’s big food hall/gathering place, Armature Works, which provides a wide variety of food and drink.

Here’s the group’s description from their Meetup page:

We are a group of professional, freelance, and amateur software developers living in the vicinity of downtown Tampa.

If you’re sick of impersonal online developer webinars and want to meet, make friends, and network with other developers in physical space, then this is the group for you. We’re informal, and like to chat about work, personal projects, and life in general.

Join us! It sounds like it’ll be fun. You can RSVP on the event page.

In case you need it, here’s the parking map for Armature Works:

Categories
Meetups Tampa Bay

Thursday: “Defending the Home Front – Practical Wi-Fi Defense” online!

This Thursday, February 24th at 7:00 PM EST, catch The Neon Temple’s (Tampa Bay’s semi-secret security society) presentation, Defending the Home Front: Practical Wi-Fi Defense, which you’ll be able to catch either in person or online.

Here’s their writeup for the presentation:

An evening covering the overview of wireless defense. We will discuss the challenges you may face protecting your wireless networks. We will also talk about some of tools available for defending your networks. The evening will wrap up with strategies you can implement based on information gained in practical testing . As always we will run through “live” demonstrations as the demo Gods allow.

Find out more on the event’s page, or catch it online on the event’s YouTube page!

Categories
Meetups Programming Tampa Bay

Building a “Wordle” function, part 1

These slides capture what we worked on Tuesday night’s “Think Like a Coder” meetup: coming up with a first attempt at a “Wordle” function. Given a guess word and a goal word, it should output a Wordle-style score.

We came up with a solution that I like to call the “close enough” algorithm. It goes through the guess word one character at a time, comparing the current guess word character with the goal word character in the same position.

When making those character-by-character comparisons, the function follows the rules:

Here’s the “close enough” algorithm, implemented in Python…

def wordle(guess_word, goal_word):
    
    # Go through the guess word one character at a time, getting...
    # 
    # 1. index: The position of the character
    # 2. character: The character at that position
    for index, character in enumerate(guess_word):
        
        # Compare the current character in the guess word
        # to the goal word character at the same position
        if character == goal_word[index]:
            # Current character in the guess word
            # matches its counterpart in the goal word
            print("green")
        elif character in goal_word:
            # Current character in the guess word
            # DOESN’T match its counterpart in the goal word,
            # but DOES appear in the goal word
            print("yellow")
        else:
            # Current character DOESN’T appear in the goal word
            print("gray")

…and here’s the JavaScript implementation:

function wordle(guessWord, goalWord) {
    
    // Go through the guess word one character at a time
    for (let index in guessWord) {
        // Compare the current character in the guess word
        // to the goal word character at the same position
        if (guessWord[index] == goalWord[index]) {
            // Current character in the guess word
            // matches its counterpart in the goal word
            console.log('green')
        } else if (goalWord.includes(guessWord[index])) {
            // Current character in the guess word
            // DOESN’T match its counterpart in the goal word,
            // but DOES appear in the goal word
            console.log('yellow')
        } else {
            // Current character DOESN’T appear in the goal word
            console.log('gray')
        }
    }
}

I call the solution “close enough” because yellow is a special case in Wordle. If the guess word is ATOLL and the goal word is ALOFT, the first L in ATOLL should be yellow and the second should be gray because there’s only one L in ALOFT.

We didn’t settle on the “close enough” algorithm — it was just enough for that night’s session. In the next session, we’ll refine the algorithm so that it matches Wordle’s!

Want to become a better programmer? Join us at the next Think Like a Coder meetup!