Category: Current Events

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Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, August 9, 2021)

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, August 9 through Sunday, August 15, 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”!

This list 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

I’m moving this list to Fridays so that you’ve got more time to plan for the upcoming week. Let me know if this change works for you (or if it doesn’t)!

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, August 9

Tuesday, August 10

Wednesday, August 11

Thursday, August 12

Friday, August 13

Saturday, August 14

Sunday, August 15

Tampa Bay Tech News

Fast, the one-click-checkout-as-a-service company, chooses Tampa as its east coast hub

From St. Pete Catalyst:

San Francisco-based fintech startup Fast, an online checkout company, is expanding to Tampa. 

Fast announced the plans on Tuesday during an event in partnership with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, NASCAR driver Parker Kligerman and other local athletes at Sparkman Wharf.

Fast CEO Domm Holland will lead the efforts to expand in Tampa and name it the company’s East Coast hub. Holland co-founded the company with former Uber operations executive Allison Barr Allen. 

“I’ve been asked by many Silicon Valley friends why Tampa? One of the biggest reasons is Mayor Jane Castor,” Holland said, crediting her understanding of his business needs and how Fast fits into the city’s goals of bolstering the tech sector. 

“I wanted to be in an area brimming with innovative energy and stocked with skilled talent,” Holland said.

Want to know more about Fast? Check out this article in protocol, Fast has a plan to reinvent online shopping. And then kill the password as well as this interview from episode 1103 of This Week In Startups where Jason Calacanis interviews Domm Holland:

Tampa-based tech company, Blue.cloud, nimbly transitions to successfully grow revenue 200% amidst pandemic

From That’s So Tampa:

Here in Tampa Bay, a not-so-quiet tech boom was already underway. From Oldsmar and Clearwater to Tampa and St. Pete, more and more tech companies were choosing to move to – or get their start in – the area. So when the world transitioned from hard copy to the cloud, the region was well-prepared to step into the role everyone needed: help figuring all that stuff out.

Perhaps the best example is Blue.cloud, a cloud-only digital transformation company that got its start in Tampa Bay. Having already been in operation for more than 15 years, Blue.cloud (formerly Bluenet, founded in 2004) was one of the industry leaders in a perfect position to leap to the rescue last March.

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!

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Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, August 2, 2021)

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, August 2 through Sunday, August 8, 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”!

This list 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

I’m moving this list to Fridays so that you’ve got more time to plan for the upcoming week. Let me know if this change works for you (or if it doesn’t)!

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, August 2

Tuesday, August 3

Wednesday, August 4

Thursday, August 5

Friday, August 6

Saturday, August 7

Sunday, August 8

Tampa Bay area news roundup

CBRE report: Tampa Bay’s tech workforce sees massive millennial growth

CBRE Group is the world’s largest commercial real estate services company, and as such, they follow the people who spend lots of money on office space. Remote work notwithstanding, a lot of high-value office space is used by tech, which is why they produce an annual “Scoring Tech Talent” report. The 2021 edition of this report came out on July 12th, and you can download it here.

Tampa Bay Business Journal’s summary of the report includes these observations:

  • Out of the 50 largest tech talent markets in the U.S. and Canada, Tampa Bay ranked at the number 10 spot.
  • Millennials — and remember, the oldest in that cohort are now in their early 40s — are seen as fueling the growth of tech talent, and Tampa Bay has seen a 14.5% increase in their number since 2014, which accounts for over 84,000 people.
  • In the report, Tampa Bay’s position dropped to 33 (out of 50 metros) from the previous year’s standing, 29th.

Tampa’s Washlava brings in new capital, CEO

Washlava, the Tampa-based “smart laundromat” company whose service makes it possible to reserve and pay for laundromat washers and dryers from a mobile app, closed $9 million in recapitalization and equity financing from Tampa’s David A. Straz Jr. Foundation and Jacksonville’s Monterey Private Capital. The press release for this funding also includes news that they’re taking on Tommy Hart as interim CEO as founder/CEO Todd Belveal is leaving the company.

Grit Daily to Host Congressional Startup Day in Tampa, Florida

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!

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Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, July 26, 2021)

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, July 26 through Sunday, August 1, 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”!

I’m moving this list to Fridays so that you’ve got more time to plan for the upcoming week. Let me know if this change works for you (or if it doesn’t)!

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, July 26

Tuesday, July 27

Wednesday, July 28

Thursday, July 29

Friday, July 30

Saturday, July 31

Sunday, August 1

Tampa Bay area news roundup

Tech job boom in Tampa Bay continues as companies relocate to Sunshine State

“Hundreds of jobs are up for grabs in the Tampa Bay area, but one of the hottest markets right now is the technology industry. New companies keep moving to Tampa and that adds to the idea of Tampa as a major tech hub.”

ConnectWise signs big deal to move HQ from Westshore to downtown Tampa

“Tampa software company ConnectWise has signed a big office lease in downtown Tampa and plans to move its headquarters from Westshore to the urban core.”

San Francisco real estate tech firm opens regional hub in Tampa

“San Francisco-based real estate tech firm HomeLight has opened a regional hub in Tampa, marking a critical step in its expansion plans for the state.”

With defense industry businesses flocking to Tampa Bay, St. Pete Innovation District proposes new hub to city

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!

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Current Events Tampa Bay What I’m Up To

Hanging out at Sparkman Wharf tonight!

Want to meet up tonight? Anitra and I will be joining friends from the Masterminds Tampa group tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Sparkman Wharf’s Fermented Reality Biergarten to catch up.

This is just a friendly gathering in the fresh air to see old friends and make new ones. I may be bringing the accordion, but the business cards are staying at the home office.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, July 19, 2021)

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, July 19 through Sunday, July 25, 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”!

I’m moving this list to Fridays so that you’ve got more time to plan for the upcoming week. Let me know if this change works for you (or if it doesn’t)!

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, July 19

Tuesday, July 20

Wednesday, July 21

Thursday, July 22

Friday, July 23

Saturday, July 24

Sunday, July 25

Tampa Bay area news roundup

The boomerang-worker boom

“Boomerang workers” — those who’ve returned to their hometowns to do remote work — rose with the pandemic, but the phenomenon shows signs of sticking around beyond it. For example, a large number of Tampa Bay natives have returned to the area after stints in bigger cities, bringing their contact lists and industry expertise with them.

Tampa emerges as a growing tech hub, but what does that really mean?

Over the last decade, the Tampa Bay Area has transitioned into a place that helps technology startup companies succeed, making it possible for them to show up on the national radar. Capital sources across the country have begun referring to Tampa as a top emerging market. 

Tampa serial entrepreneurs unveil latest startup with focus on real estate tech

iApartments was founded in 2019 and born out of the three co-founders’ experience working in the industry. Fiske is a founding partner of Unikey Technologies, which operated in the smart home industry. He also an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Tampa Bay Wave, a local startup incubator. iApartments CEO Dave Magrisso is the founder of Valet Waste, which is now known as Valet Living. Rounding out the team is Mohammed Syed, the company’s co-founder, CTO and former technology partner at AutoWeb.

Meet Spectrio, a 2021 Fast 50 honoree

Spectrio is an Oldsmar-based provider of customer engagement technology and a 2021 Fast 50 honoree.

St. Pete cybersecurity startup launches, raises $5M Series A

A St. Petersburg-based cybersecurity company has spent the last three years testing its technology and is now ready to unveil its platform — along with a solid funding announcement.

“We have spent the last three years to come out like a lion,” Code-X founder and CEO Darren LaCroix said.

The company offers a software as a service platform, which protects sensitive information across multiple environments concurrently. The platform includes video, email and chat functions that can work simultaneously without the threat of being hacked.

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!

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, July 12, 2021)

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, July 12 through Sunday, July 18, 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”!

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, July 12

Tuesday, July 13

Wednesday, July 14

Thursday, July 15

Friday, July 16

Saturday, July 17

Sunday, July 18

Tampa Bay area news roundup

Tampa Bay’s tech scene had a banner first half of 2021

Here’s Tampa Bay Business Journal’s roundup of their biggest tech stories from the first half of the year.

Startup City: Six steps to a healthier startup ecosystem in St. Petersburg

“Successful communities have certain attributes that put them in the running to attract the talent that a vibrant economy requires. Fortunately, St. Petersburg is rich in the cultural and infrastructure assets that resonate with tech entrepreneurs and startup founders. These include a great quality of life, walkable urban spaces, a thriving arts scene, a research university that ranks in the top ten for U.S. patents, and a nearby airport that travelers named in a national J.D. Power’s 2020 customer satisfaction study. And of course, weather and natural beauty that can’t be beat.”

TampaBay.Ventures Leads Investment Into Y Combinator Graduate Procoto

“TampaBay.Ventures has led an investment into St. Petersburg, Florida-based Procoto, a procurement and spend analysis platform for businesses. Procoto is a graduate of the famed Y Combinator startup accelerator program and the first Y Combinator graduate located in the Tampa Bay area. The investment represents the first investment from TampaBay.Ventures, a new venture capital firm dedicated to backing Tampa Bay’s most promising startups.”

Tampa Bay startup personality launches conference

“Allen Clary, author of Quit to Start, has been supporting entrepreneurs for years with organizations including Tampa Bay Wave, Upsurge Florida, and Tiger 21. Now he’s bringing his own thought leadership conference, Unlock Your Future Now, to Tampa Aug 27 through 29. In addition to Allen, speakers also include Janel Laravie, Johnny Crowder, Marcus Howard, Mariagrazia Indenbosch, Garyn Angel, Kaylan Boss, Kat Stylez, Sasha Jovicic, Holly Callaway, and Adam Anderson.”

Tampa startup, Black Stock Footage, wins Florida pitch competition

“The idea emerged as all the events around Black Lives Matter unfolded and Lee’s clients began requesting more Black representation in their video projects. When Lee searched multiple stock footage platforms, he quickly recognized a problem: A substantial lack of stock footage depicting Blacks in ordinary, real life circumstances. Not only was there no one-stop shop for such content, but piecing it together was a challenge. He started mulling it over with Edgerton-Maloy, his fiance, and they came up with the solution: Create a new platform designed to provide the kind of footage that was lacking.”

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!

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, July 5, 2021)

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, July 5 through Sunday, July 11, 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”!

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

Don’t forget that the week follows the holiday weekend, with Monday being a holiday, and a lot of people taking at least part of the week off. This the one of the slower times of the year, so make sure you double-check with its organizers to be sure that it’s actually taking place!

Monday, July 5

Tuesday, July 6

Wednesday, July 7

Thursday, July 8

Friday, July 9

Saturday, July 10

Sunday, July 11

Tampa Bay area news roundup

‘Visitor economy’ and ‘cultural infrastructure’ propel Tampa, St. Pete metro area to ‘best city’ honors — The Tampa Bay area has been named the number one city in Florida and number 22 in the U.S., according to a study conducted by Resonance Consultancy, a Vancouver-based global advisor on tourism, real estate, and economic development.

So many Tampa Bay mobile dev job openings, so few applicants — While checking LinkedIn earlier this week, I noticed that there were a lot of iOS and Android developer jobs in the Tampa Bay area, and many of them didn’t have any applicants (or at least any applicants who applied via LinkedIn).

Tampa Bay tech grows as more workers move to the area — Tampa Bay is ranked one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, and tech is one of its fastest-growing industries, accounting for nearly 8% of the entire workforce, according to CompTIA.

Tampa Bay companies raised another $13M in June — A small but mighty amount of funding deals kept the Tampa Bay technology scene holding strong in June. The group of companies raised just over $13 million for the month, nearly identical to May’s $13 million total.

https://news.crunchbase.com/news/inside-tampa-bays-burgeoning-blockchain-startup-hub/

Tijuana Flats is the latest major brand to partner with Tampa tech company — Tampa-based technology company SiteZeus has announced its latest partnership with Tijuana Flats, adding to a long line of restaurant industry giants it currently helps to better find where companies should open new locations.

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!