If you want to know what’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech scene, or want to know what tech, entrepreneur, or nerd events are happening in and around the Tampa Bay area, it’s easy: just subscribe to the Tampa Bay tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events mailing list!
It’s got the same content as the weekly post here in Global Nerdy, but delivered straight to your inbox! It’s free of charge, “all ham and no spam,” and I don’t sell your email address (I’ll explain why below).
Why do I make these weekly events postings and the mailing list?
According to the 2019 edition of the annual tech talent report [PDF link] put out by CBRE, Tampa is the top small tech talent market in North America. Our tech talent population grew by over 10,000 people — an increase of about 28% — between 2013 and 2018. With techies in leading markets becoming less available or moving to smaller markets or the Sun Belt, our small but scrappy scene is in a position to put the area on the larger tech map — if we’re willing to put in the work.
Doing the work we do for a living is only part of the job. The other part — and it’s a crucial one — is building a lively tech scene that extends beyond office hours. We need to get together, make friends, share ideas, find work, form clubs, start businesses or side hustles, and do all those things ordinary cities into tech powerhouses. I was there when Toronto was a tech backwater in the early 2000s, but by teaming up with other community-minded techies who brought back their experience from working at tech centers during the dot-com bubble, we built it up into one of the top 3 tech cities in North America. I’d like to help to make the same thing happen here.
Hence my weekly “tech events” post, and thanks to a suggestion by Justin Davis, it’s also available as a weekly email digest.
I don’t charge anything for the list, nor will I make money by selling your email addresses. I plan to profit from the list by helping to make Tampa Bay’s tech scene an active, lively, and prosperous one. So please — subscribe to the list, find some events that interest you, go attend them, and go forth and help build the Tampa tech scene!