The meetup takes place tomorrow at Vaco Tampa Skycenter (near Tampa International Airport), and is organized by Tampa Java User Group, Tampa QA Meetup, and Tampa Devs! Here are the details:
Here’s what’s happening in the thriving tech scene in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, December 2 through Sunday, December 8, 2024! This list includes both in-person and online events.
Wednesday at noon, online: Join Computer Coach’s 30-minute LinkedIn Live session, Building Community in Tech, dedicated to exploring the power of building a professional community that supports growth, learning, and collaboration.
On Wednesday evening, Tampa Java user Group, Tampa QA Meetup, and Tampa Devs are jointly hosting a talk by none other than Dr. Venkat Subramaniam: Twelve Essential Practices to be Effective in Continuous Delivery. It will take place starting at 5 p.m. at the Vaco office.
Dr. Subramaniam is one of the brightest lights in the Java scene today, and it’s a rare treat to be able to get him here in Tampa Bay, so you might not want to miss this one!
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
️ Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
Here’s what’s happening in the thriving tech scene in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, November 25 through Sunday, December 1, 2024! This list includes both in-person and online events.
Keep in mind that many organizers schedule their events “on autopilot” and may not have accounted for Thanksgiving this week. Check with the event organizers to see if the event is actually happening this week, especially if it’s scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday!
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
️ Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
The Tampa Bay AI Meetup is back (in cooperation with the Tampa Java User Group) with a presentation titled Welcome to the AI Jungle! Now What? on Tuesday, December 10 at 5:30 p.m. at the Hays office. Kevin Dubois, Principal Developer Advocate at Red Hat and Java Champion, will be presenting — he’ll guide us through the world of enterprise AI implementations.
The AI revolution is transforming business landscapes, but many developers find themselves overwhelmed by this paradigm shift. How do we navigate this “Wild West” of tools, models, and platforms?
Kevin will demonstrate how open source technologies can standardize AI development and deployment in enterprise environments. Learn how to leverage familiar tools like containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and GitOps to build AI-powered applications in a secure, repeatable manner.
What you’ll learn
Discover how open source solutions are democratizing AI development and deployment. Through live demonstrations, Kevin will showcase:
OpenDataHub (OpenShift AI)
Kubernetes integration
Backstage implementation
Java application integration with Open Source models
Local development environment setup
About the Speaker
Kevin Dubois brings a wealth of experience to the table:
Java Champion
Principal Developer Advocate at Red Hat
Active contributor to Quarkus, Knative, Apache Camel, and Podman
Member of Belgian CNCF and Belgian Java User Group
Last year’s event and the growth of the Tampa Bay scene
Here’s a photo from last year’s event:
Tap to view at full size.
As you can see, it was a full house last December, which is a tribute to the growth and activity of Tampa Bay’s tech scene.
I moved to Tampa in March 2014, and back then, it would’ve been hard to get this many attendees at Embarc Collective. Part of this is because there wasn’t an Embarc Collective back then, and it’s also because the scene was much smaller, less active, less organized, and there were fewer groups. Over the past ten years, I’ve seen our tech scene grow in leaps and bounds, and it continues to evolve. Let’s celebrate this!
There’ll be a raffle!
There’ll have plenty of raffle prizes to win! To enter, you can:
Bring an unwrapped gift or gift card (valued at $10 or more) for donation, or
Purchase a raffle ticket at the door.
All gifts and funds raised will go to Joshua House, a safe haven for children and teens who’ve been abused, abandoned, or neglected. Last year, the end-of-year tech event raised over $1000, and this year, we’re aiming even higher! Help us make an even greater impact by reaching our new goal and supporting children in need across our community.
If you’re thinking about entering by donating a gift, here’s a list of items they’re asking for this year:
Gift cards: Visa, Target, Walmart, McDonald’s, Hot Topic, AMC Movie, etc.
Hoodies! Name brands, any anime or anything from Hot Topic—junior and adult sizes
Graphic t-shirts: Name brands, any anime, cartoon, etc. in junior and adult sizes
Anything anime/manga: clothing, books, posters, etc.
LEGO sets: Star Wars, superheroes, cars, etc.
Crocs – adult sizes & the jibits, too!
Make-up & nail kits – Ulta, Urban Decay, etc. (Press-on nails, too – great for stocking stuffers!)
Fragrance sets: Bath & Body Works, AXE, Victoria’s Secret, etc.
LED lights for room decorating
Superhero comic books for all ages
Books/book Series for teens/pre-teens: graphic novels, joke books, popular YA novels
Here’s what’s happening in the thriving tech scene in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, November 18 through Sunday, November 24, 2024! This list incluzdes both in-person and online events.
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
Tech project management / agile processes
Video, board, and role-playing games
Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
️ Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
Since March 13, 2017, I’ve posted a weekly list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. I’ve continued to do this to this day, with me typically assembling the list on Thursday and posting it on Friday.
Today is Thursday, so I’m assembling the list — or more accurately, a Jupyter notebook running some Python code I wrote is scraping various sites and creating a checklist like the one you see in the screenshot above.
Back when I first started the list, I used to put it together manually, but as Tampa Bay’s tech scene and events grew, so did the list. It wasn’t long before assembling the list was eating up the better part of an afternoon, and that’s when I decided to add some automation to the process.
The checklist contains likely candidates for inclusion in the list, and each item in the list is checked by default. The checklist is there to allow me to apply my final judgement as to what goes and doesn’t go into the list.
There’s a hug “deny” list of key words and phrases that cause an event to not make it into the checklist because it doesn’t fall under the umbrella of “tech, entrepreneur, or nerd.” For example, events with the words “real estate” don’t make it into the list — they often contain the word “developer,” which my code is looking for, but that’s not the right kind of developer event for the list.
Would any of you be curious as to what’s in my tech events list-creating code and how it works? Would you like me to do a presentation at a local meetup or on YouTube explaining how it works? Let me know.
Keep in mind that many organizers schedule their events “on autopilot” and may not have accounted for Thanksgiving this week. Check with the event organizers to see if the event is actually happening this week, especially if it’s scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday!
