It started with this rather clever observation…
…and ended up in the closing of her account.
The most likely scenario? Given that she’s a woman with an opinion about Elon Musk, she probably got harassed off the platform by his rabid fanbase.
Here’s the list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, October 31 through Sunday, November 6, 2022.
Every week, with the assistance of a couple of Jupyter Notebooks that I put together, I compile this list for the Tampa Bay tech community.
As far as event types go, this list casts a rather wide net. It includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under the category of:
- 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 (because nerds really need to up their presentation game)
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
- Anything I deem geeky
By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.
This week’s events
Monday, October 31
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Young Professionals Networking JOIN in and Connect! | In person at Fords Garage St Pete | 11:00 AM |
| Christian Professionals Network Tampa Bay | Live Online Connection Meeting- Monday | 11:30 AM |
| Professional Business Networking with RGAnetwork.net | St. Pete Networking Lunch! Fords Garage! Monday’s | 11:30 AM |
| Network After Work Tampa – Networking Events | The Trust Equation Masterclass | 3:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Tabletoppers | Monday Feast & Game Night | 6:00 PM |
| Board Game Meetup: Board Game Boxcar | Monday Weekly Board Game Night! (Lazy Moon Colonial Location) | 6:00 PM |
| Critical Hit Games | MTG: Commander Night | 6:00 PM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | Wesley Chapel Speaks Toastmasters | 6:30 PM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | North Port Toastmasters Meets Online!! | 6:30 PM |
| Tampa – Sarasota – Venice Trivia & Quiz Meetup | Trivia Night – Off the Wagon Kitchen & Brewery Smartphone Trivia Game Show | 6:30 PM |
| Orlando Poker Tournaments Meetup Group | .25/.50 Online Texas Holdem Cash Game | 7:00 PM |
| Light Study PRO – A Photography Workshop for Emerging Pros | Members as far back as 2008 can access their photos | 7:00 PM |
| Meet New People As Adults – Which is Harder Than Expected | Trivia Night to Meet New People | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Gaming: RPG’s, Board Games & more! | Board Game Night at Armada Games | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Card Room | .25/.50 Texas Holdem Cashgame Online | 7:00 PM |
| West Orange Comics & Video Games | Magic The Gathering Halloween Party | 7:00 PM |
| Central Florida AD&D (1st ed.) Grognards Guild | World of Greyhawk: 1E One-Shots | 7:30 PM |
Tuesday, November 1
Wednesday, November 2
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Network Professionals Inc. of South Pinellas (NPI) | NPI Profit Partners Chapter – Exchange Qualified Business Referrals | 7:30 AM |
| Business Networking for Entrepreneurs of Color | Virtual Business Networking – Entrepreneurs of Color | 7:30 AM |
| Tampa Bay Business Networking Meetings & Mixers | DOWNTOWN ST PETE YOUNG NETWORKING PROFESSIONALS BREAKFAST AT THE HANGAR! | 7:30 AM |
| 1 Million Cups – Orlando | 1 Million Cups – Orlando Weekly Meetup | 8:30 AM |
| Suncoast Credit Union Micro Enterprise Development Meetup | Micro Enterprise Development Program Orientation | 9:30 AM |
| Florida Startup: Idea to IPO | How to Build a Unicorn | 11:00 AM |
| Professional Business Networking with RGAnetwork.net | In Person Networking BRANDON! Just Love Coffee Cafe – Brandon FL | 11:15 AM |
| Bradenton/Sarasota Networking Meetings and Mixers | Business Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| Entrepreneurs & Business Owners of Sarasota & Bradenton | Sarasota Business Networking Lunch All Welcome, Just purchase Lunch! | 11:30 AM |
| Young Professionals Networking JOIN in and Connect! | Brandon Business Professionals Just Love Coffee | 11:30 AM |
| Tampa Bay Business Networking Meetings & Mixers | Brandon Networking Professionals Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| Success Strategies for Business Owners | Championing Confidence in the Workplace | 12:00 PM |
| Web Design And SEO/SEM Three Sixty Degrees | Web Design And SEO/SEM Three Sixty Degrees | 12:00 PM |
| Board Game Players Club | Board game playing | 1:00 PM |
| Free Video Production Classes – TV/Internet | Digital Video Editing Class (ONLINE CLASS) -FREE for Hillsborough residents only | 1:00 PM |
| Orlando Poker Tournaments Meetup Group | .25/.50 Online Texas Holdem Cash Game | 2:00 PM |
| Work From Home -Online Business Opportunities and Networking | Learn How to Deal In Stocks And Shares – Tips & Insider Knowledge From Trader | 3:00 PM |
| Brandon Boardgamers | Board Gaming – In Person | 5:00 PM |
| Orlando Adventurer’s Guild | [HISTORIC] Storm King’s Thunder Tier 2 – DM Robert | 5:00 PM |
| The Tampa Chapter of the Society for the Exploration of Play | Playing Games in the Alley | 5:00 PM |
| Ironhack Tampa – Tech Careers, Learning and Networking | Nov. Workshop: Learn the Basics of Python Programming from an Industry Expert | 5:00 PM |
| Power Gals of Brandon | Power Gals of Brandon – networking meeting | 5:30 PM |
| Tampa Gaming Guild | Wednesday Board Game Night | 5:30 PM |
| Greater Tampa Business and Real Estate Strategy Group | Investing Meetup | 5:30 PM |
| Board Game Meetup: Board Game Boxcar | Blood on the Clocktower & Board Games! (Deadwords Brewing Location) | 6:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Gaming: RPG’s, Board Games & more! | Hobby Night – Minis Painting Tips & Tricks at Armada Games | 6:00 PM |
| WordPress Tampa | To be announced: Scheduled Talk | 6:30 PM |
| Bradenton Photo Group | Basic Editing and Composition | 6:30 PM |
| Crypto & NFT Investors Club–Tampa Bay Chapter | Crypto Investors Club (5 STAR RATED) | 6:30 PM |
| The Pinellas County Young “Professionals” | Happy Hour: Season 2 – Avid Brew Company | 6:30 PM |
| Florida Writer’s Association / Orlando | Orlando Florida Writer’s Association | 6:30 PM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | Carrollwood Toastmasters Meetings meet In-Person and Online | 7:00 PM |
| Nerd Night Out | Games & Grog – Party Games Social Night | 7:00 PM |
| Central Florida AD&D (1st ed.) Grognards Guild | New Beginnings & Old Rivalries | 7:00 PM |
| Communication Skills for Quiet People | How to Open Yourself Up and Connect with People | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa – Sarasota – Venice Trivia & Quiz Meetup | Smartphone Trivia Game Show at Wilders Pizza | 7:00 PM |
| Port Charlotte Writers Group | November 2nd Zoom meeting | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Amazon Sellers E-commerce Meetup | 2 Hugely Successful Brands & Exiting the 1st to Focus on the 2nd w/ Radu Oboroc | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Card Room | .25/.50 Texas Holdem Cashgame Online | 7:00 PM |
| Communication Skills for Interviews and Life | How to Increase Your Confidence and Communication | 7:00 PM |
| Orlando Lady Developers Meetup | Code challenge bi-weekly coding session | 8:00 PM |
| Critical Hit Games | Werewolf | 9:00 PM |
| Tampa / St Pete Business Connections | Brandon Business Professionals IN Person!!!! | 11:30 PM |
| Tampa / St Pete Business Connections | Carollwood Professionals Networking Lunch! | 11:30 PM |
Thursday, November 3
=== Blog ===
Friday, November 4
Saturday, November 5
Sunday, November 6
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Florida Center for Creative Photography | Advanced Composition Make-up Class — Part 4 of 4 | 9:00 AM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | Clearwater Sunday Speakers Toastmasters Club | 9:30 AM |
| Suncoast Critical Thinking Discussion Group | CRITICAL THINKERS SUNDAY BRUNCH AT ROSEMARY & THYME | 10:00 AM |
| Soberish Hang Outs and Book Club | Discussing Chatter by Ethan Kross | 10:00 AM |
| There’s A Book For That: Self-Improvement Book Club | First weekly meeting | 10:00 AM |
| SEO For All | SEO For All Kickoff Group | 11:00 AM |
| Tampa Japanese Meetup | Orlando Japan Festival in Kissimmee | 11:00 AM |
| Board Games and Card Games in Sarasota & Bradenton | Games at Descent Into Gaming | 12:00 PM |
| Orlando Urban Professionals Meetup Group | Brainstorming Entrepreneurship Meeting! | 1:00 PM |
| Beginners Guide to D and D | D&D Adventurers League | 1:00 PM |
| Critical Hit Games | D&D Adventurers League | 2:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Gaming: RPG’s, Board Games & more! | D&D Adventurers League at Critical Hit Games | 2:00 PM |
| Drunk’n Meeples West Pasco (Boardgames) | Weekend Game Day | 2:00 PM |
| Orlando Digital Media Design Meetup | Virtual Event: Adobe Design Coach | 2:30 PM |
| Toastmasters, Division D | Weekend Toastmasters | 3:00 PM |
| Gen Geek | TreeHoppers Aerial Park – ZipLines/Ropes Course | 3:45 PM |
| Brandon and Seffner area AD&D and Rifts (Palladium) Group | Rifts | 5:00 PM |
| Hosted By Volusia Young Professionals Group (covers East and West) | February West Volusia Networking Social | 6:00 PM |
| Tesla Church | Tesla Church Meetup | 6:00 PM |
| Nerdbrew Events | Hidden Gems Night, Presented by A Duck! | 7:00 PM |
| Learn-To-Trade Crypto – Online (As seen on Orlando Sentinel) | Learn-To-Trade Cryptos, Forex & Futures (ONLINE) | 7:00 PM |
| Learn-To-Trade Stocks – Online (As seen on Orlando Sentinel) | Learn-To-Trade Crypto, Forex & Futures (Online) | 7:00 PM |
| Learn-To-Trade Forex – Online (As seen on Orlando Sentinel) | Learn-To-Trade Forex, Crypto & Futures (ONLINE) | 7:00 PM |
| Nerd Night Out | A Duck Presents NB Movie Night | 7:00 PM |
| Solana – Tampa | Office Hours | 8:00 PM |
Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?
Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!
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!
You could read this Washington Post article, Elon Musk Acquires Twitter and Fires Top Executives (behind a paywall), or you could simply look at this photo, which provides a good summary:
Anitra and I attended last night’s CyberX Tampa event, an conference about the cybersecurity industry here in Tampa Bay. It was an extraordinarily well-attended event, with over 170 people gathered together to talk about technology, security, and the local tech scene.
The event took place at TheIncLab’s offices, located in one of the old warehouses in Tampa’s historic Ybor City neighborhood, which is largely made of repurposed cigar factories from the late 1800s. They have a beautiful courtyard which I’m familiar with — before it was TheIncLab’s place, it was home to The Undercroft, whose UC Baseline cybersecurity course I took in 2020.
CyberX Tampa opened with drinks, snacks, and networking, followed by two simultaneous panels.
The courtyard had the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion panel, featuring:
- Suzanne Ricci, Chief Success Officer, Computer Coach, as moderator
- Courtney H. Jackson, Founder & CEO, Paragon Cyber Solutions
- Samantha Ramos, Information Security Risk Manager, Nextech Systems
- Hugh Percy , Mgr, Cyber Security Threat Analysis & Operations, Moffitt
And inside, there was the panel titled Blackhat Tactics You Should Know, with:
- Charlton Trezevant, Senior Application Security Consultant, GuidePoint Security
- Robert Lubin, Security Operations Center Director, Abacode
The final panel of the evening was the big one — a discussion of the state of cybersecurity in Florida.
The panelists were:
- Moderator: Larry Whiteside, CISO, RegScale
- Jason Allen, CTO, Digital Hands
- Kari Schori, CIO, Office of the Public Defender 6th Judicial Circuit
- Rolando Torres, Co-Founder & COO, Abacode
It was a great evening all around, and I hope it’s a good sign for future events in Tampa Bay, and a sign that our tech community is active!
Of course, the events wouldn’t have happened without the sponsors. Click on their logos to find out more about them!
The topic: Cybersecurity.
The event: CyberX Tampa, an evening conference with some pretty interesting speakers and topics, and a chance to catch up with some local techies and security nerds.
The place: TheIncLab in Ybor City, in the place where The Undercroft — the guild where I took a pretty intense cybersecurity course during the pandemic — used to be.
The cost: Free as in beer. $0. Just register on their Eventbrite page.
The agenda:
| Time | Event |
| 5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. | Networking |
| 6:00 p.m. – 6:15 p.m. | Special honoree: Courtney H. Jackson, founder and CEO of Paragon Cyber Solutions and Global 2022 Cybersecurity Woman Entrepreneur of the Year |
| 6:15 p.m. – 6:45 p.m. | Breakout sessions DE&I in Cyber Panel with: • Moderator: Suzanne Ricci | Chief Success Officer @ Computer Coach • Courtney H. Jackson | Founder & CEO @ Paragon Cyber Solutions • Samantha Ramos | Information Security Risk Manager @ Nextech Systems • Hugh Percy | Mgr, Cyber Security Threat Analysis & Operations @ Moffitt Blackhat Tactics You Should Know • Charlton Trezevant | Senior Application Security Consultant @ GuidePoint Security • Robert Lubin | Security Operations Center Director@ Abacode |
| 6:45 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. | Networking |
| 7:00 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. | Panel Discussion: State of Cybersecurity in Florida • Moderator: Larry Whiteside | CISO @ RegScale • Jason Allen | CTO @ Digital Hands • Kari Schori | CIO @ Office of the Public Defender 6th Judicial Circuit • Rolando Torres | Co-Founder & COO @ Abacode |
| 7:45 p.m. | Thank you’s and good night |
What you’ll get out of it: Well, that depends on what you put into it. But trust me, there are opportunities and a lot of potential there, and I can tell you that half of winning is just showing up.
I’ll see you there!
Did that headline get your attention? Good.
There’s a lot of local hype about the upcoming Florida Bitcoin and Blockchain Summit, and I’ve come to remind you that last year’s stars were these jerkoffs:
CELSIUS. Yes, that Celsius — the cryptocurrency lending company that filed for bankruptcy. The one who paused withdrawals in June, but not before its C-level people made big withdrawals themselves. The one facing federal investigations. The one whose data dump leaked half a million users’ holdings info.
Last year, they were the darlings of the Florida Bitcoin and Blockchain Summit, where they announced their decentralized finance arm, Celsius X, their CTO announced his moving to Tampa Bay (and became one of Tampa Bay Business Journal’s “25 people to watch in 2022”), they helped facilitate Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s being paid in crypto (in a fit of crypto fever, she said she’d take two of her paychecks in cypto; she lost 67% of its value since then), and who threw a post-Summit community meetup so popular that there was a waiting list.
Hey, Tampa Bay! Did we learn nothing from Fast? Are we so desperate to compete against the Miami, Florida’s so-called “next tech hub,” that we’re willing to glom onto any grifter who comes along and promises to make us the next Silicon Valley?
As the one-person show behind the Tampa Bay Tech Events List, I will continue to list crypto events — people still want to attend them, and maybe “there’s a there there,” but I cannot in good conscience not stand by and not remind people that last year’s darlings costs some people dearly.
If you feel you must attend this year’s Florida Bitcoin and Blockchain Summit, remember last year’s hype and this year’s outcome.
Recommended viewing
Kodeco (pronounced Koe-DECK-coe, or “code echo,” your choice) is the new name of RayWenderlich.com, the premier mobile development tutorial site!
Over the past decade, I’ve had the pleasure of not just learning mobile development at RayWenderlich.com, but also writing articles for them, doing presentations and workshops at their conference, recording a full video course, and even co-authoring a book!
I even introduced Anitra to them, and she’s now a tech editor there, which is why we’re both on the team photo collage:
The name RayWenderlich.com made sense when it was just a blog that its namesake, Ray Wenderlich, started when he’d quit his job to become an indie mobile developer. At the time, he was simply blogging and sharing iOS development tips as part of his business. As I mentioned earlier, I learned iOS programming from the original edition of his first book, The iOS Apprentice, where you learn by building four applications.
The site kept growing and became that classic internet success story where the side business became the main business. The site grew to add Android development tutorials (around the time I joined the team), and since then has expanded to add Flutter, Unity, and other mobile development topics.
A decade and thousands of articles later, the name change makes sense. It’s no longer an indie mobile developer’s side project, but a full-fledged publishing company in the same spirit as O’Reilly and No Starch Press.
Congratulations, Kodeco, and I look forward to writing more mobile dev tutorials with you!
More about Kodeco
- Introducing Kodeco — the New raywenderlich.com (written by Chris Belanger, CMO)
- Why Rebrand? The Backstory of raywenderlich.com (written by Ray Wenderlich, Founder)
- 319 Days to Building a New Brand (written by Matt Derrick, CEO)
- Kodeco’s new social media accounts:
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/Kodeco
- Instagram: @KodecoDev
- Twitter: @KodecoDev
- LinkedIn: Kodeco and KodecoDev
- YouTube: KodecoDev