StartupBus — the annual hackathon where techies, idea people, marketers, and creatives board a bus bound for New Orleans and build an application and the business around it while on the bus — is giving back to the city that has given so much to it. They’re holding an event called #StartupBusForNOLA this Friday, October 15th at Green Bench Brewing Co. in St. Pete!
Their goal is to raise $5,000 for NOLAvate Black, an organization whose goal is to build a more sustainable, accessible, and diverse technology ecosystem in the Greater New Orleans region. NOLAvate Black was founded by Sabrina Short, who served as a judge in the last StartupBus finals in 2019 (where my team and I were one of the finalists).
Here’s your weekly list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events — plus a little area tech news — for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, October 11 through Sunday, October 17, 2021.
This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!
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
This list contains only events that are outdoors or online for the time being
The COVID-19 case rates are dropping from their all-time highs, but we’re still a hotspot and they still need to continue trending downward. With that in mind, I’ve chosen to limit the events listed to outdoor or online events. Be safe, be responsible, get your shots, and we can get back to those better numbers that we had in the spring and early summer!
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!
I’m from that generation that did programming assignments in C and got into iOS development when Objective-C was the only way to do it, so this comic provided me with a little nostalgia blast.
If you prefer specs, the A11 is powered by an older chipset, the Snapdragon SDM450, with octa-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 and Adreno 506 GPU. You can see its full specs on GSMArena.
T-Mobile U.S.: A free Samsung Galaxy A12
I unexpectedly got a free phone — complete with free line! — from T-Mobile last month. I was there to add a line to my plan for someone in my family, and it turned out that I chose the right time. It was during one of those promotions where if you added a line to a plan, they’d give you an extra line that’s free of charge forever and with a free phone!
They asked if I wanted one, and after confirming that it wouldn’t cost me anything extra, said yes.
The free phone is a Samsung Galaxy A12, the successor to the A11 that Wendy’s Canada is giving away. T-Mobile currently offers both phones at the same price: $180, which can be paid off over two years in monthly payments equal to the cost of a Big Mac meal with ice cream cone
The A11 uses the Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 chipset, with octa-core (4×2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53) and PowerVR GE8320 GPU. You can see its full specs on GSMArena.
The A12 is going to be my new low-end Android test phone, and since it came with a free line, I now have another secret phone number (oh yes, I have a couple of ’em), which is very often a handy thing to have.
What these freebies tell us about the state of mobile in 2021
These phones sell for about $200, the low end of a price spectrum whose high end is about $1,200. Think about it: What other consumer category gives away freebies valued at 16% to 20% of the top-of-the-line versions of the product?
These free phones live in the sweet spot where:
They’re cheap enough to give away,
yet valuable enough that customers feel that they’re getting an amazing deal when they get one for free.
In the case of the T-Mobile deal with the A12, I got an additional free line for as long as I’m a customer — that’s something they’re willing to give away and write off as a marketing/customer loyalty expense.
According to Pew Research Center, 35% of Americans owned a smartphone a decade ago, which was a mere four years after the industry-changing iPhone keynote and three years after the introduction of the App Store. Smartphones had already moved out of the “early adopter” zone, but they were still in the “nice to have, but not absolutely necessary” category.
Today, 85% of Americans own a smartphone, and they’re now considered to be a necessity with a price for every budget.
Here’s your weekly list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events — plus a little area tech news — for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, October 4 through Sunday, October 10, 2021.
This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!
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
This list contains only events that are outdoors or online for the time being
The COVID-19 case rates are dropping from their all-time highs, but we’re still a hotspot and they still need to continue trending downward. With that in mind, I’ve chosen to limit the events listed to outdoor or online events. Be safe, be responsible, get your shots, and we can get back to those better numbers that we had in the spring and early summer!
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!
Having skills is only part of the game. Because life is a team sport, connections matter too!
Want to harness the power of friendship?
Then you’ll want to catch this online panel, State of The Tampa Tech Scene, where you’ll find me and other organizers behind Tampa’s influential startups and meetups talking about the current state of technology and the tech industry, as well as how you can get involved and grow your network. Find out more on the event’s Meetup page.
It’s a hybrid event — both in-person and virtual. I’ll be attending virtually.
Here’s their description:
Businesses with diverse partners are empircally more successful. But, the roadmap for building a strong and diverse network of partners and suppliers is not always clear. Join us for a tactical conversation about putting best intentions into best practices.
Here are the panelists:
Jocelyn Azada is the director of Business Diversity, Supply Chain ESG, and Risk at Nielsen. She’s passionately committed to creating solutions for environmental and social challenges through the power of procurement and global supply chains. She was a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the development of the ISO Standard for Sustainable Procurement, ISO 20400, and is on the Strategic Advisory Committee for the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Coalition. She also represents Nielsen as a founding member of the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition, a global network of leading companies including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, creating digital jobs for people with limited access to these opportunities.
A South Florida native, Avril Stinson moved to Tampa 18 years ago. Seasoned in investor/sponsor relations, and program management, she brings years of investor relations and sponsor engagement knowledge to the Tampa Bay Chamber. Stinson is passionate about powerful community support development and entrepreneurship, in addition to networking, programming, and strategic leadership within organizations.
Stinson has previously worked at Tampa Bay Wave, as Director of Development, and at the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council, as the Investor Relations Director, leading their investor engagement and programming efforts. Additionally, Stinson holds a B.A. in Public Relations from the University of Florida and a Master’s Degree from Marshall University in Counseling. Stinson was also an integral member of the Junior League of Tampa’s Marketing and Diversity Committees, and currently serves on the Advisory Board for MetArena, the social media app for indie game studios, and Mentoring with Purpose Charity, as well as mentoring for USF’s Black Leadership Network. Stinson also serves on the Board of Directors for the Florida Business Development Corporation, as well as the Synapse Impact Board and is a founding member of the Synapse Inclusion Lives Here Committee. She recently joined Hillsborough Community College’s Art Gallery – Advisory Committee, as well as The Tampa Museum of Art’s Diversity & Inclusion Task Force. Avril is a founding member of the Synapse Impact Board’s Inclusion Lives Here Committee.
Nikki Pardo is the founder of Global Alliance Solutions, a consulting company that offers simulation-based customized diversity training for corporations, non-profit agencies, school districts, and law enforcement agencies. She also is co-founder of The Pack, a community-based project that hosts conversations linked to inclusion, equity and community throughout Detroit. Nikki has been featured in several publications, received Corp! Magazine’s Diversity Business Leader Award for 2017, facilitates trainings across the country, and is a trusted consultant on the topic of diversity, equity, inclusion, and implicit bias.
Nikki was appointed to the FBI-Detroit Division – Multi-Cultural Advisory Council, and is a graduate of the FBI Detroit Citizens Academy. She was also appointed to the Princeton University Prize in Race Relations – Detroit Committee, is a graduate of the New Detroit-The Coalition’s Multicultural Leadership Fellowship, and the national fellowship Seeking Education Equity and Diversity (SEED). She has served on numerous boards, and currently serves on Birmingham’s Race Relations and Diversity Task Force Board, and the Board of the Hispanic Police Officer Association – Detroit Chapter.
Nikki is an avid researcher and earned a Master of Business Administration degree in Management/Leadership, a Master of Science in Administration degree with a concentration in International Administration, and a Bachelor of Science degree. She is also a nationally certified Global Career Development Facilitator, a member of the National Career Development Association, the National Diversity Council, and a Michigan-certified mediator. Nikki is also a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and Jack and Jill of America – Oakland County Chapter.
Cesar Hernandez – Managing Director + CEO of Omni Public, Synapse Impact Board Member & President, Tampa Bay Latin Chamber – is a public affairs and public relations professional specializing in helping individuals/companies introduce and deploy new technologies, concepts, and ideas into the marketplace and engage with government, media, and industry.
He has worked with government agencies, public officials, political candidates, and past clients to interact with the media and launch initiatives with disruptive companies such as Tesla, Google, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Bird, and IBM.
Lauren Prager is privileged to meet the incredible and diverse talent across Florida’s innovation communities in her role as Synapse’s VP of Community Engagement. As a result, she cultivates strategic partnerships that strengthen innovation across the state. She also curates the stories that are shaping Florida’s growth and showcasing our talent on the various Synapse stages hosted virtually in in person throughout the year.
