Jennifer Reif is a Developer Relations Engineer at Neo4j, who will walk through what a graph database is and how it can transform your applications and data.
Graphs are different from other types of databases because they store relationships between data points. This makes them ideal for applications where the connections between data provides additional context, improving decision-making with existing data.
Join us to learn how to leverage graph databases in your applications and AI projects. Jennifer will talk about creating, querying, and displaying data and learn how to integrate a graph database into applications. Finally, she will discuss how graph databases can be used in AI applications and the strengths they bring to the table. Live code will demonstrate these concepts in action.
PackfilesTampa-based Packfiles is a project management and software platform founded this year. After meeting and working together in Tampa Bay, co-founders Rob Bremer and Charlton Trezevant — the creator of the software developer meetup group and nonprofit Tampa Devs — wanted to create a tool that eliminates the need for service firms during the coding file migration process, which developers utilize for efficiency.
The tool seeks to simply and controllably migrate files to Microsoft-owned platform GitHub, a popular tool for software developers that hosts code for collaboration and storage. In an ecosystem where successful startups are all about fulfilling a need, the co-founders’ experience collaborating at their prior company to help found one of the premier GitHub Professional Services practices in the United States will be key as they continue to build the platform.
Okay, that’s the layperson’s explanation. What does Packfiles actually do?
Packfiles’ SaaS, called Warp, is a GitHub migration service. Normally, the process of migrating repositories from Azure DevOps to GitHub involves a complex process that requires a fair bit of planning, a number of shell scripts with limited support, and tedious, error-prone manual work.
It looks like this:
Warp is built on Packfiles cofounders Rob Bremer’s and Charlton Trezevant’s experience with performing these migrations. It automates the lion’s share of the process, and once you’ve done the necessary configurations, Azure DevOps-to-GitHub migrations end up looking like this:
In case you were wondering, that’s an actual screen capture of what I did to migrate a repository from Azure DevOps to GitHub, and if it looks like the comments section from a GitHub issue, that’s because it is! In Warp, you use GitHub to migrate to GitHub:
Warp creates a GitHub repository called Migration HQ, which represents the migration-to-GitHub project.
Each Migration HQ issue represents a repository to be migrated.
You enter Warp commands in the issue comments. For example, in the issue representing a repository that I wanted to migrate, I entered the “slash command” /migrate to start the migration process for that repository. Warp first replied in a follow-up comment to tell me that the migration was in progress, and then notified me in another follow-up comment that the migration was complete and provided a link to the repository’s new GitHub location.
Who’s going to use Packfiles’ Warp?
Warp’s target market, as you’ve probably figured out, is organizations who use currently Azure DevOps and want to switch to GitHub.
And who uses Azure DevOps? It turns out there’s a little club of businesses call the Fortune 500, and 85% of them are on Azure DevOps.
This leads to a follow-up question: What makes you think organizations want to move from Azure DevOps to GitHub?
My unofficial answer would be: Have you tried using Azure DevOps?
My more-official answer’s a little more serious, and it’s a citation of a Reddit thread in r/devops from a mere 14 hours ago at the time of writing:
Finally, there’s the reaction that Rob, Charlton, and the rest of the Packfiles team got at the 2024 edition of GitHub Universe, the conference for all things GitHub. They were approached by companies of all sizes, including some very large ones you’ve definitely heard of.
Simply put, Warp solves a problem that most people don’t even know exists, but a lot of organizations need solved.
What will I be doing at Packfiles?
Long story short: I’ll be doing whatever Packfiles needs me to do. A lot of it will involve creating their documentation and developer/devops relations material, as well as technical sales and support.
The work I’ll be doing, especially in the beginning, will be collaborating very closely with Charlton, who’s lead developer and CTO, as well as with developer Justin Linn (whom I’ve been on not one, but two editions of StartupBus), so I’ll be working at least three days a week at Packfiles’ office at Tampa’s premier coworking/incubator space, Embarc Collective. Here’s what I see when I enter the place:
Luckily, it’s a quick drive from my place; in fact, it would take me 35 minutes to bike there, which I’ll do when the weather’s nice.
And here’s my desk at the office:
I’ve been working with Packfiles for the past couple of weeks, and I’m enjoying working there, being “in the room where it happens,” and also seeing the other folks at Tampa Bay’s startups at Embarc Collective.
This should be an interesting year. Keep watching this space for more!
It’s going to be an abbreviated, but very intensive program is perfect for B2B software startups that are less than 9 months old. It will cover strategy, product development, and market validation and is for first-time startup founders, who could benefit from the planning activities and tools, and aren’t ready to commit to a full-time program.
The tl;dr
What: IdeaSprint Bootcamp
When: Wednesday, January 15, 5:00 — 7:30 p.m.
Where: Tampa Bay Innovation Center (1101 4th St S, St. Petersburg)
Application deadline: Apply by Friday, January 10!
First-time tech innovators with an idea for a tech product
What should attendees expect?
Expert-led workshops
Peer-to-peer learning
An understanding of Tampa Bay’s ecosystem of tech resources
What categories of startup are eligible?
Enterprise software (including SaaS)
FinTech
MedTech
AgTech
SpaceTech
Energy storage & management
Robotics
Please note:
TBIC’s elevator was damaged by the storm and will not be accessible. Attendees must be able to use the stairs.
This in-person event is open to founders located in the Tampa Bay region.
This program is limited to 20 companies; applications must first be approved, and founders will be notified via email in advance of the program. Please make sure your contact information is correct.
This program is exclusively for product companies, consultants or service providers will not be accepted.
Here’s what’s happening in the thriving tech scene in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, January 6 through Sunday, January 12, 2025! This list includes both in-person and online events.
Tuesday evening at GuidePoint Security, Tampa: Speaker Aniruth Narayanan will talk at the Tampa Devs meetup about data lake technologies, and the history of relational databases, data warehouses, ML algorithms, and data lakes. He’ll will also dive into technical details of table formats like ACID guarantees of Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg, the underlying file formats like Apache Parquet, and how they come together to create the lakehouse for ML and AI.
Wednesday evening at the Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, Tampa: Data Analytics & AI Tampa Bay is holding their January meetup. This meetup’s topic is part two of a two-part series: Mastering LLM Integrations: Anything LLM, Ollama, and the Path to AI Agents.
Part 2 is about AI agents. Building on the foundations established in Part 1, Part 2 will focus on AI Agents through the lens of CrewAI. This segment will offer an overview of CrewAI’s capabilities and applications in AI Agent development. The session will conclude with a live demonstration of AI Agents in action, illustrating how the foundational concepts from Part 1 translate into real-world use cases.
Thursday evening at the Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, Tampa: Tampa Java user Group and Tampa Bay Artificial Intelligence Meetup present What you need to know: Data, apps, and AI for graph databases.
Join Jennifer Reif is a Developer Relations Engineer at Neo4j, who will walk through what a graph database is and how it can transform your applications and data. She’ll talk about creating, querying, and displaying data and learn how to integrate a graph database into applications. Finally, she will discuss how graph databases can be used in AI applications and the strengths they bring to the table. Live code will demonstrate these concepts in action.
Friday morning, online: Join Tampa Bay User Experience for a virtual coffee talk! Got questions about UX? Want to discuss a specific topic? This is the place to do it.
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
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 and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
Here’s what’s happening in the thriving tech scene in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, December 30, 2024 through Sunday, January 5, 2025! This list includes both in-person and online events.
Keep in mind that when it comes to meetups and other extracurricular activities, this is one of the slower weeks of the year.
Many organizers schedule their events on Meetup “on autopilot” (such as “the first Wednesday of the month) and may not have accounted for New Year’s Eve and Day this week. Before you attend an event this week, check with the organizers to confirm that it’s actually happening, especially if it’s scheduled for Tuesday (New Year’s Eve), Wednesday (New Year’s Day), and Thursday (Hangover Day)!
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
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 and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
Here’s what’s happening in the thriving tech scene in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, December 23 through Sunday, December 29, 2024! This list includes both in-person and online events.
Keep in mind that when it comes to meetups and other extracurricular activities, this is one of the slowest weeks of the year.
Many organizers schedule their events on Meetup “on autopilot” (such as “the last Wednesday of the month) and may not have accounted for Christmas this week. Before you attend an event this week, check with the organizers to confirm that it’s actually happening, especially if it’s scheduled for Tuesday (Christmas Eve), Wednesday (Christmas), and Thursday!
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
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 and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
If you’re in Tampa Bay, put this on your calendar for the new year: the Ideas on Tap lecture series’ inaugural event, where these speakers will each present a 15-minute talk on…ideas!
The tl;dr
What: Ideas on Tap
When: Tuesday, January 7, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. and talks starting at 7:00 p.m.
The inaugural session will feature three talks on the idea of ideas, and how we can all catch lightning in a bottle.
Justin Davis, VP UX at Sourcetoad: Your Idea Probably Sucks
Justin has a passion for creating user experiences of all shapes and sizes. See why he thinks building ideas starts with cutting them down.
Annemarie Boss, Facilitator, UMBN Collaborative: Become An Idea Machine
Annemarie is a creativity and innovation facilitator who designs workshops that help teams solve complex problems. See how her techniques can help you generate the next big idea.
Brent Britton, Partner, Bochner PLLC: How Ideas Take Flight
As an intellectual property attorney and entrepreneur, Brent has spent his career turning ideas into assets. Learn his “easy” process for bringing ideas to bear in the real world.
What is Ideas on Tap?
It’s a lecture series put together by film producer Carl Vervisch for thinkers, doers, and storytellers in Tampa Bay. As Carl puts it:
“No pitches, no politics. We’re just here to foster a community where ideas incubate, propagate, and bloom.”
It will take place at New World Tampa, which has an excellent selection of beer and some fine pizza, and promises to be an interesting event.
