Category: Current Events

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, December 9, 2019)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date December 8, 2019

We’re in the top 20!

Why did Tampa Bay make the top 20 in CompTIA’s 2019 list of U.S. metros for technology jobs? One of the biggest reasons is the Tampa Bay tech community, who not only do their day jobs, but make outstanding contributions to the tech scene. They get involved in events where they share their knowledge, make connections and friends, and gather together to build strong tech, entrepreneur, and nerd communities. That’s why I do this every week: I put together a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events to make sure that they can be found and you can attend them!

This weekly list is posted as a voluntary service to the Tampa tech community. With the notable exceptions of Tampa iOS Meetup and Coders, Creatives and Craft Beer — both of which I run — most of this information comes from Meetup.com, EventBrite, and other local event announcement sites. I can’t guarantee the accuracy of the dates and times listed here; if you want to be absolutely sure that the event you’re interested in is actually taking place, please contact the organizers!

Find out more about Tampa Bay’s status in the top 20 tech metros

You can find out more about Tampa Bay’s being one of the top 20 tech metros in the following places:

From the source: The CompTIA Tech Town Index 2019
Global Nerdy: The first in a series of articles on making Tampa Bay an even better place for techies to live, work, and play: Making Tampa Bay a better tech zone, part 1: We’re in the top 20, which is a good start!
St. Pete Catalyst: Tampa-St. Pete debuts on CompTIA ‘Tech Town’ list
Tampa Bay Times: Tampa Bay area named top 20 ‘Tech Towns’
Tampa Bay Business Journal: Report: Tampa among best tech cities for IT jobs in the nation

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing about ideas to help ensure that Tampa Bay stays in the top 20 on Global Nerdy. Be sure to check them out!

Monday, December 9

Tuesday, December 10

Wednesday, December 11

On Wednesday, Computer Coach and High Tech Connect will host their holiday party at Brick House (where Dale Mabry meets the 275) from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.. Join them for one of the big tech community get-togethers, and help them out with their Toys for Tots campaign! They’re taking donations of new, unwrapped toys.

Thursday, December 12

Friday, December 13

Saturday, December 14

Sunday, December 15

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

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!

Tags Tampa Bay Tech Events

Making Tampa Bay a better tech zone, part 1: We’re in the top 20, which is a good start!

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date December 5, 2019
4 Comments on Making Tampa Bay a better tech zone, part 1: We’re in the top 20, which is a good start!

Creative Commons photo by “Dennis Ludlow – Sharkshock”. Tap to see the source.

Tampa Bay’s in CompTIA’s list of the 20 best metropolitan areas in the U.S. for information technology jobs by landing in 19th place. They refer to us as one of the “up-and-comers” along with Columbus (12th on their list) and San Diego (17th), and ranked us just behind fellow Florida city Jacksonville (which they called one of the “surprises”) and just ahead of Baltimore. It’s yet another data point in a steady stream of good news for techies in the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater metro area.

A little background: CompTIA is the short form for The Computing Technology Industry Association. They’re a non-profit that issues professional certifications for IT pros, such as computer technician, cloud, Linux, networking, pen testing, project management, security, servers, and so on. They also produce over 50 industry studies that track industry trends, and one of these is the CompTIA Tech Town Index.

To compile their Tech Town Index, CompTIA took the U.S. metro areas with populations over 250,000 and selected the 20 with the most tech job postings during the period from August 2018 and July 2019. They then ranked these cities based on the following criteria:

The number of IT job ads
A “location quotient”, which is the number of IT job ads divided by number of people employed
Cost of living
Wages, adjusted for local cost of living
Projected job growth over the next year
Projected job growth over the next 5 years

Here’s a map showing the cities that made this year’s Index…

…and here’s the list of those cities:

Click the list to see it at full size.

Here’s what CompTIA has to say about Tampa Bay in their writeup. I added some emphasis to the key take-away:

The Tampa Bay region, which includes Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, has long been considered a top vacation destination. But city leaders want more for this area and their efforts to transition the economy from one based on traditional construction, agriculture and tourism businesses to an economy built on technology are paying off. The investment opportunities in Tampa Bay are plentiful and the area is now home to more than 150 tech startups—just one factor leading to its debut at no. 19 on our list of tech towns.

In addition to the obvious perks of 75-degree days year-round and a daily dose of vitamin D, attractive tax structures and innovative research centers are just a few reasons why Tampa Bay has become so appealing.

But perhaps the most important attraction is a clean slate—uncharted territory. With nearly 43,200 IT jobs posted last year and IT jobs estimated to grow by 6% in the next 5 years, Tampa Bay has the numbers to bolster this growth. In fact, Forbes recently named the area no. 2 on its list of “Top 10 Best Cities for Young Entrepreneurs.”

Companies like Citi, Verizon and WellCare are hiring in Tampa and local IT talent can expect to make a median salary of $79,553 a year. The cost of living is slightly higher than the national average—just 2.3% higher to be exact. When adjusted for cost of living, Tampa edges out Jacksonville in terms of getting more bang for your buck, and it is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the state.

Next in this series: More good numbers for Tampa Bay!

Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, December 2, 2019)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date December 1, 2019

Every week, dedicated individuals and organizations in around the Tampa Bay do more than just their “day jobs”. They get involved in events where they share their knowledge, make connections and friends, and gather together to build strong tech, entrepreneur, and nerd communities. That’s why I do this every week: I put together a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events to make sure that they can be found and you can attend them!

Here’s what’s happening in Tampa Bay this week!

Monday, December 2

Tuesday, December 3

Wednesday, December 4

Thursday, December 5

Friday, December 6

Saturday, December 7

Sunday, December 8

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

Join the mailing list!

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!

Tags Tampa Bay Tech Events

Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, November 25, 2019)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date November 24, 2019

Hey, Tampa Bay techies, entrpreneurs, and nerds — here’s what’s happening in Tampa Bay this week!

It’s the week of Thanksgiving, so things are going to be more quiet than usual. Take the time to kick back, take stock, and find things to be thankful for, which should include being based in the best small tech talent market in North America. Next week, we’ll probably see the number of events ramp up as our local meetups start throwing their Holiday parties.

Monday, November 25

Tuesday, November 26

Wednesday, November 27

Because it’s the day before Thanksgiving, I strongly recommend that you double-check with the organizers that the events listed below are actually happening before you attend.

Thursday, November 28: Thanksgiving!

The events listed below are recurring events, and it’s very, very likely that their organizers forgot to account for Thanksgiving and remove them from the schedule. I’m including them only because they’re still listed in their schedules.

Friday, November 29: Black Friday

Because it’s the day after Thanksgiving, I strongly recommend that you double-check with the organizers that the events listed below are actually happening before you attend.

Tampa Bay Connections — Friday Business Introductions @ McAlister’s Deli, 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM

Saturday, November 30

Sunday, December 1

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

Join the mailing list!

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!

Tags Tampa Bay Tech Events

Current Events Tampa Bay Uncategorized

If you like my “Tampa Bay tech events” posts, you’ll LOVE the mailing list!

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date November 21, 2019

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!

Subscribe to the mailing list

Current Events Tampa Bay Uncategorized

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, November 18, 2019)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date November 17, 2019

Here’s what’s happening in Tampa Bay this week!

Monday, November 18, 2019

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Inno on Fire is Tampa Bay Inno’s inaugural awards ceremony recognizing the region’s entrepreneurs, executives, startups and tech businesses that are on fire. The event will feature “networking, tasty bites, cocktails, craft beer and wine, along with the very special announcement of the ‘Inno Blazer,’” where one standout company or individual from each category to be honored as a blazer, which will be announced at the event. Blazers will receive, yes, a red blazer. Tickets are still available at $55.

We’ll be celebrating the individuals, companies and organizations that are driving innovation across a variety of categories, including…

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

At Wednesday’s Tampa QA Meetup, Jeff Fudge of Green Pages Technologies will present DevOps 101, where he’ll answer questions such as: What is DevOps and why does it matter? What problems will DevOps help testers solve? How do I set up CI/CD pipelines for automated tests? What mistakes can I avoid? Why is continuous testing important?

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Thursday’s Women in Technology International meetup’s topic is Your Lion Inside Rewriting the Narrative for Women. This event will feature Kim Faith, an award-winning author, speaker, trainer, coach, and consultant who has worked with over thirty-thousand corporate leaders from companies including Amazon, American Airlines, Boeing, GE, Lockheed Martin and Target.

Friday, November 22, 2019

Do you have an idea you’d like to pursue? Do you want to work with a passionate startup team? Don’t know where to start or who to start with? Startup Weekend Orlando is THE place to look for a team, create a prototype of your idea, validate your business idea, and receive feedback from experienced entrepreneurs, all in one weekend. This is no exaggeration — Orlando teams won the Global Startup Battle across 150 cities and 15,000 participants in 2017 AND 2018. That’s the last 2 years in a row! Help them make it a 3-peat!