Tampa Bay’s tech scene is having a September to Remember!

September starts this week, and each week in this new month has its own big Tampa Bay tech event, with new opportunities to learn, network, make friends, and take part in “The Other Bay Area’s” tech scene!

These events, which are covered in more detail below, are:

Event	Quick summary	When and where
SocialCode x Tampa	An evening of AI (3 short talks and a panel discussion) and networking in a swanky Hyde Park venue.	Thursday, Sept. 7 Hyde House
BSides St. Pete	Deep cybersecurity knowledge will abound, with a full Friday of training sessions and a full Saturday devoted to a Black Hat-style conference.	Friday/Saturday Sept. 15 – 16 St. Petersburg College’s Seminole Campus
DevOpsDays Tampa Bay	A full-day conference dedicated to DevOps (“Dev” as in “software development,” “Ops” and in “IT operations”) in Tampa’s best conference venue.	Thursday, September 21 Armature Works
Navigating Your Tech Journey	An evening of tech career guidance (keynote and panel discussion) and networking at Tampa Bay’s premier tech gathering space.	Tuesday, September 26 Embarc Collective

SocialCode x Tampa (Thursday, September 7)

The SocialCode is the name for events that tech recruiter Oscar Technology hold worldwide, and they’re holding one in Tampa on Thursday, September 7th!

The event:	The SocialCode x Tampa
TL;DR:	An evening of AI (3 short talks and a panel discussion) and networking in a swanky Hyde Park venue.
Recommended if you’re:	• Interested in AI (that’s the speaker and panel topic) • Looking for tech work (because it’s sponsored and run by a tech recruiting company) • Looking for a fancier event (it’s in Hyde Park)
When:	Thursday, September 7, 2023 5:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Where:	Hyde House Public Studio 1646 W Snow Avenue, Tampa FL
How much:	Free!
Where to register:	The SocialCode x Tampa’s Eventbrite page

This event, The SocialCode x Tampa, will focus on AI and feature these speakers:

• Craig Bosco, Data Scientist at Gale Healthcare, who’ll talk about how predictive analytics can play a part in healthcare staffing, the role of AI in automation and operational excellence, and how different types of AI can be used to augment the skills of a limited workforce.
• James Gress, Generative AI Director at Accenture, who’ll talk about how various organizations are harnessing the power of generative AI to drive innovation in their products and enhance operational efficiency, and how we can use multiple technologies across the entire software delivery lifecycle.
• Yours Truly, Joey deVilla, Senior Developer Advocate at Okta, who’ll talk about two different approaches to human/AI synergy — “centaur” (human head/non-human body) and “minotaur” (non-human head/human body) — and how to get on the right side of this equation.

This event is free to attend — register here!

BSides St. Pete 2023 (Friday/Saturday Sept 15 – 16)

BSides is the name of a series of cybersecurity conferences that grew from the “overflow presentation” at Black Hat and are now their own thing! The St. Pete edition happens on the weekend of September 15th and 16th, with the training sessions on the 15th and the conference proper on the 16th!

The event:	BSides St. Pete
TL;DR:	Deep cybersecurity knowledge will abound, with a full Friday of training sessions and a full Saturday devoted to a Black Hat-style conference.
Recommended if you’re:	• Interested in cybersecurity and infosec (that’s what this conference is all about) • Looking for cybersecurity and infosec work (there’ll be lots of people from security companies there, and some of them will be recruiting) • “Homesick” for Black Hat and/or DEFCON or didn’t get to go this year • On a budget and want to get the most hardcore conference bang for your buck
When:	• Training sessions on Friday, September 15, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. • Conference day on Saturday, September 16, 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Where:	St. Petersburg College – Seminole Campus 9200 113th Street N, Seminole FL
How much:	• Friday training sessions: $1 (really!) • Regular admission: $25 • College/university student admission: $15 • Middle/high school student admission: $10 • Elementary school student admission: $1
Where to register:	BSides St. Pete’s registration page

If you want a taste of what BSides is like, check out my article, Scenes from BSides Tampa X 2023, which I attended this spring. BSides St. Pete will continue the tradition of sharing deep cybersecurity/infosec knowledge, but on the St. Pete side of the Bay this time!

The Friday training sessions will be:

• Blue Team Workshop – Network Attacks, with Laura Mayeux from Vectra AI
• Introduction to Hands-On Purple Teaming, with Bryson Bort & Chris Peacock from SCYTHE
• Splunk Boss of the SOC, with Will Robus from Outpost Security

The Saturday conference sessions will be:

• Between Two Palms: A Session on Burnout, with Elvira Reyes and Chris Machowski
• Complexity is the Enemy: How to start doing Cyber Risk Management with Dan Holland
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Build a Modern Detection & Response Program, with Allyn Scott
• Exploring Threat Actor Strategies on Exploitation of Emerging TLDs, with Pat Gelin
• Integrating Cybersecurity into Organizational Culture and Portfolio Management, with Carlos Rodriguez
• How to Build a Cybersecurity Journey, with Ivan Marchany
• Getting into Cybersecurity, with Stacey Oneal
• A Urinal Story: Human Behavior & Security, with Daniel Lopez
• Navigating New Cybersecurity Regulations: Charting a Course for Success, with Terri Khalil
• Everything I Needed to Know About Practical Cybersecurity, I Learned from my Mom, with Michael Magyar
• Creating your Security & Compliance Audit Framework, with Michael Brown
• Building a Comprehensive Framework for AI Systems Security: Methodology and Grading, with Wilson Bautista
• IAM Security and So Can You: An Intro to Identity Access Management and How to Beat It to a Pulp, with “Uncle Raydar”
• Adversarial Prompting: Exploiting Large Language Models, with Sam Decker
• Enhancing Chrome Extension Security: Fortifying Your Browser Experience, with Aishwarya Ramesh & Nagarajan Samuel Ogunlade
• Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management and Evolving Governance, with Joshua Weathers
• How to Wage War and Bypass Congress: a Primer on Gray Zone Warfare, with Jon “Cochise” Buzin
• Getting MAAD-AF to Attack Microsoft 365 & Azure AD, with Arpan Sarkar
• The Boring Parts of AI: Risks and Governance of Large Language Models, with Dan Fernandez

This event charges admission, but it’s pretty cheap — register here!

DevOpsDays Tampa Bay 2023 (Thursday, September 21)

Devops is underrated, which is a terrible shame, because software and systems don’t happen without it! Luckily for us techies in Tampa Bay, we have a conference on devops, and it’s happening on Thursday, September 21!

The event:	DevOpsDays Tampa Bay
TL;DR:	A full-day conference dedicated to DevOps (“Dev” as in “software development,” “Ops” and in “IT operations”) in Tampa’s best conference venue.
Recommended if you’re:	• Interested in devops, CI/CD, and setting up, operating, and maintaining all the things that make software development and delivery possible (that’s what this conference is all about) • Looking for devops work (there’ll be lots of people working in devops there, and some of them will be recruiting) • Curious as to how software and systems get built and deployed beyond the planning and coding phases
When:	Thursday, September 21, 2023 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Where:	Armature Works 1910 N Ola Avenue, Tampa FL
How much:	• Before September 1: $100 • After September 1: $150
Where to register:	DevOpsDays Tampa Bay’s Eventbrite page

The conference sessions will be:

• How do we talk to each other?, with Nora Jones
• Realigning DevOps: Customers and Learning First, with Kishore Jalleda
• The Startup DevOps Playbook – Making It A Success From Day One, with Aman Sharma
• Building Resilience: A Journey of Crafting and Validating Our Disaster Recovery Plan, with Yedidya Schwartz
• The Power of DevOps in the Real World, with Randy Pagels
• Simplifying Cloud Native Chaos Engineering: A Deep Dive into Chaos Mesh, with Soumyadip Chowdhury
• Best Practices for Securing CI/CD Pipelines, with Lizz Parody
• The OpenTelemetry Hero’s Journey: Working with Open Source Observability, with Josh Lee
• Open spaces

Admission is $150, but if you register before September 1, you can save $50 and pay only $100 — register here!

Navigating Your Tech Journey (Tuesday, September 26)

Hot on the heels of their successful “Breaking into Tech” panel back in late July, Tampa Bay Techies are holding a great follow-up meetup where the topic will be about bridging the opportunity gap in the Tampa Bay technology industry.

The event:	Navigating Your Tech Journey
TL;DR:	An evening of tech career guidance (keynote and panel discussion) and networking at Tampa Bay’s premier tech gathering space.
Recommended if you’re:	• Wondering what the next move in your tech career should be (that’s the main topic of this meetup) • Looking for tech work (there’ll be lots of people working in tech there, and some of them will be recruiting) • New to the Tampa Bay tech scene or haven’t been to a Tampa Bay tech event in a while
When:	Tuesday, September 26, 2023 5:30 – 9:00 p.m.
Where:	Embarc Collective 802 E Whiting Street, Tampa FL
How much:	Free!
Where to register:	Navigating Your Tech Journey’s Meetup page

This event will feature Candace Williams, who will share her inspiring journey into the world of technology. From her early days to becoming Associate Director, Cybersecurity at Raytheon and starting Cyb(H)er Ally, Candace’s story is a testament to what’s possible in the tech industry.

Following Candace’s keynote address, there will be a panel of accomplished industry professionals ready to answer your burning questions. Guided by the audience’s inquiries, this discussion will focus on the invaluable lessons they learned when starting their tech careers and finding their own unique paths in the industry.

This event is free to attend — register here!