Come join Community Broadband PDX to talk about building a publicly owned broadband network here in Portland.

RSVP to be added to our mailing list!

See you there!

Free public library workshop on how to minimize your digital trail using the Activist Checklist

All about RSS! Wish you could have a dedicated place for all those newsletters in your email inbox? Got an RSS reader yet? Want your very own RSS feed for your blog? We'll help you get set up!

RSS LIBERATES YOU.

But what do #pdx and RSS have in common? A LOT! Try this. Download an RSS app on your phone. Go to @[email protected]'s website. "Share" the link to your RSS app, and click Add Feed. Never miss a local story or event!

TokioConf 2026

hosted by the Tokio Project ( https://tokio.rs )

HackUP is Portland's first intercollegiate hackathon: a 24-hour tech innovation marathon where students and industry leaders converge to network, compete for major prizes, and build something meaningful.

Let’s get together for an informal BEAM PDX hangout: coffee, conversation, and light co-working.

This is a low-key monthly meetup for folks working with Elixir, Erlang, Gleam, and other BEAM languages, aimed at reconnecting the local community and rebuilding momentum after a long quiet stretch. We'll holding this on the second Thursday of each month.

There will be opportunities to:

Ask questions about Elixir and other BEAM languages Share what you’ve been working on (or stuck on) Get help with programming or design problems Co-work: get things done with like-minded folks nearby Brainstorm ideas for future talk-based meetups and identify potential speakers Bring your laptop if you’d like. It's totally optional.

New to BEAM languages, or just curious? You’re very welcome.

Please RSVP so we know roughly how many people to expect. If your plans change, un-RSVP when you can.

This meetup is also part of our transition away from Meetup to a new home for the group, where we’ll be organizing future events.

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

This one-hour tour of the Portland Art Museum will include a tour of accessibility features, followed by an exploration of the museum's tactile graphics.

The studio has been reserved - so we will have a quiet place to talk and explore the tactiles. Personal belongings can be left in this area during the tour, as the studio will be securely locked.

This tour is being offered free of charge, but an RSVP is required. Once the tour is completed, food and beverages can be purchased at Coquelico within the Portland Art Museum. Attendees can continue to tour the museum if they wish.

Museum Staff Request: Please avoid wearing scented body and laundry products, as well as essential oils.

Accessibility Request: The Portland Art Museum (PAM) now has elevators and an accessible entrance. Here are further details on the PAM's accessibility offerings. Please let us know if you have any accommodation requests, such as stools, etc.

Where to Meet: The lobby, more details to come. Please look for our logo.

RSVP https://luma.com/hu8ooquo?tk=MzDiPB

Lovable Hackathon — brought to you by PDX Hacks & AI Collective, sponsored by Lovable.

The Portland Linux Kernel Meetup for March 2026 will be at...

• Date: Thursday, March 19, 2026
• Time: 06:00 PM to 09:00 PM US/Pacific
• Location: Lucky Labrador Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby St, Portland, Oregon 97209 US

Come enjoy a beverage and chat with other people who are interested in the Linux kernel. All experience levels are welcome. This is a friendly and casual meetup.

Look for a table with the plush Tux penguin.

To get timely reminders of Portland Linux Kernel Meetups, see https://ikluft.github.io/pdx-lkmu/subscribing-to-pdx-lkmu-events.html.

March is all about infrastructure! We'll learn to manage edge container deployments, and then how to account for our AWS infrastructure drift.

Date: Thursday, March 19 Time: 5:30–7:30 PM Location: Reperio Health, 4784 SE 17th Ave Suite 120, Portland, OR Recording: Talks are typically recorded (opt-in by speakers)

A big thank you to Reperio Health, our venue host, and Red Hat, our food and beverage sponsor this month. If your company can sponsor our meetup, please contact the organizers.

Running MicroShift on Fedora Bootc for Scalable, Secure, and Resilient Edge Deployments - Ram Gopinathan, Red Hat

As edge computing accelerates across industries—from utilities and manufacturing to retail and smart cities—organizations are looking for lightweight, reliable, and secure platforms to deploy containerized applications at scale at the edge. Enter MicroShift, a small-footprint Kubernetes distribution, paired with Fedora Bootc, an image-based, immutable operating system built for consistency and resilience.

In this session, we’ll demonstrate how running MicroShift on Fedora Bootc creates a powerful foundation for edge workloads, combining the familiarity of Kubernetes with the reliability of image-based OS updates and atomic rollbacks. Learn how this approach reduces operational complexity, improves boot-time performance, and enhances system integrity—especially for unattended or resource-constrained edge environments.

Mind the Gap: Tracking AWS Infrastructure Drift Over Time - Christopher Buckley, Buckshot Technologies

Modern DevOps pipelines focus heavily on deploying infrastructure-as-code, but what happens after the deploy? In many organizations, the infrastructure evolves outside of Git — through the console, ad hoc scripts, or third-party tools — leaving behind blind spots and compliance risk.

In this talk, we’ll explore practical ways to track infrastructure drift and deltas across AWS environments. You’ll learn how to snapshot configurations, compare changes between points in time, and surface deltas across accounts in a format that’s accessible to engineers, auditors, and security teams alike.

We'll demo an open-source tool built to show Git-style diffs for AWS infrastructure — not as a pitch, but as a case study in how visibility empowers better decisions, faster troubleshooting, and cleaner audit trails. Whether you're running one VPC or a hundred, knowing what changed is the first step to staying in control.

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Registration required.

This event is open to all.

​Curious about building with Claude but not sure where to start?

​Join us for a hands-on Claude Code Workshop led by Todd Greco, designed for beginners, builders, and anyone curious about using Claude inside a real coding environment.

​This session will walk through how to set up the Claude Code CLI and development environment, and how Claude can assist with everyday coding tasks like debugging, file manipulation, and feature building.

​Claude Code allows developers to run Claude directly in the terminal, making it a powerful companion for building software, experimenting with ideas, and accelerating projects.

​After the workshop, participants are welcome to stay, experiment, and work on ideas together in an open build session.

​Whether you’re a developer, hacker, or simply curious about how AI can support your workflow, this session will help you get started.

​What you'll learn

​How to set up the Claude Code CLI

​How to authenticate and connect your Claude account

​Using Claude inside your terminal development workflow

​Practical ways Claude can assist with coding tasks

​Tips for experimenting and building with Claude

​Requirements

​Participants should have:

​A laptop

​A Claude account (Claude Pro recommended)

​Basic familiarity with using a terminal

​Note: Claude Pro provides access to the Claude app and Claude Code. API access is separate and billed based on usage.

​Schedule

​10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Claude Code Setup Workshop with Todd Greco

​11:00 AM – 1:00 PM Open build session — experiment, collaborate, and work on ideas.

​Come learn something new, build something interesting, and meet others exploring the Claude ecosystem in Portland.

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Let’s get together for an informal BEAM PDX hangout: coffee, conversation, and light co-working.

This is a low-key monthly meetup for folks working with Elixir, Erlang, Gleam, and other BEAM languages, aimed at reconnecting the local community and rebuilding momentum after a long quiet stretch. We'll holding this on the second Thursday of each month.

There will be opportunities to:

Ask questions about Elixir and other BEAM languages Share what you’ve been working on (or stuck on) Get help with programming or design problems Co-work: get things done with like-minded folks nearby Brainstorm ideas for future talk-based meetups and identify potential speakers Bring your laptop if you’d like. It's totally optional.

New to BEAM languages, or just curious? You’re very welcome.

Please RSVP so we know roughly how many people to expect. If your plans change, un-RSVP when you can.

This meetup is also part of our transition away from Meetup to a new home for the group, where we’ll be organizing future events.

Come join Community Broadband PDX to talk about building a publicly owned broadband network here in Portland.

RSVP to be added to our mailing list!

See you there!

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Hello everyone! My name is Daniel Adayev, I'm the Community Chamption at Tabsdata, and I'm hosting a data engineering happy hour on Feb 19th and thought some people here might be interested.

If you're in the Comp Sci/Data Science/Data Analytics or any field that works with data, stop by!

This is my first time hosting something like this so it's starting small. Super informal, a small bar tab that I got my company to sponsor, and 2 free drinks a person. If it goes well, I'd love to make it a recurring event to allow people to come kick back and relax.

If you're interested, only requirement is to RSVP: https://luma.com/qs618rs4

The Portland Linux Kernel Meetup for February 2026 will be at...

• Date: Thursday, February 19, 2026
• Time: 06:00 PM to 09:00 PM US/Pacific
• Location: Lucky Labrador Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby St, Portland, Oregon 97209 US

Come enjoy a beverage and chat with other people who are interested in the Linux kernel. All experience levels are welcome. This is a friendly and casual meetup.

Look for a table with the plush Tux penguin.

To get timely reminders of Portland Linux Kernel Meetups, see https://ikluft.github.io/pdx-lkmu/subscribing-to-pdx-lkmu-events.html.

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Topic

Often relegated to episodic efforts such as late-stage audits and ad hoc projects, digital accessibility is most effective and efficient when it is the organization’s default mode of operation. Making the shift to continuous accessibility leads to better outcomes across the board, including improving the experience of disabled users, mitigating the risk of accessibility-related lawsuits, improving brand reputation, and even creating a positive return on investment (ROI).

In this talk we provide practical strategies for embedding accessibility into daily routines and technical systems, demonstrating how to start small and scale over time. Key topics include:

• Establishing a repeatable accessibility routine and improving it over time.
• The importance of data and metrics, such as bug counts and time-to-resolution (TTR), to establish a baseline and measure progress.
• Rallying cross-functional allies to drive change (yes, even without C-suite mandates).
• Creating a unified system where human workflows and technical tools work in concert.

A real world case study illustrates how the strategic application of automated regression testing and clear bug prioritization led to a profound cultural shift where accessibility is treated like any other product quality concern. Attendees will leave with actionable ideas for initiating and sustaining cultural change, making the case for accessibility as a core business principle.

Agenda

The event begins at 6 pm; join early, starting at 5:45 pm for networking.

• 5:45–6:00pm Networking
• 6:00–6:15pm Introductions and announcements
• 6:15–6:45pm Presentation
• 6:45–7:15pm Q&A and discussion

About the presenters

Devon Persing is your neighbor to the north in Seattle, WA. Before joining "big" tech as an accessibility professional around 2012, she worked in "small" tech as a UI designer, front-end web developer, and usability advocate in libraries, higher education, and local government. She has an MS in Information and is disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent, and as a result her approach to digital accessibility centers information literacy, organization dynamics, and disability justice. Her current focus as a solo consultant is on helping people do accessibility work that is more holistic, inclusive, cooperative, and sustainable. She wrote a book called The Accessibility Operations Guidebook with that goal in mind.

Portlander by birth and by choice, Andrew Hedges is COO for Assistiv Labs, an accessibility tooling company based in the PNW. His 28-year career as a web developer and engineering leader has taken him to companies from Apple to Zapier. As a longtime advocate for improving the usability of websites for people with disabilities, Andrew would love nothing more than for accessibility to become the default so we can finally realize the original promise of the web to democratize access to information for everyone.

RSVP

Please RSVP for the Zoom link.

Accommodation requests

If you have any accommodation requests, don't hesitate to contact us before the event to discuss.

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Let’s get together for an informal BEAM PDX hangout: coffee, conversation, and light co-working.

This is a low-key monthly meetup for folks working with Elixir, Erlang, Gleam, and other BEAM languages, aimed at reconnecting the local community and rebuilding momentum after a long quiet stretch. We'll holding this on the second Thursday of each month.

There will be opportunities to:

• Ask questions about Elixir and other BEAM languages
• Share what you’ve been working on (or stuck on)
• Get help with programming or design problems
• Co-work: get things done with like-minded folks nearby
• Brainstorm ideas for future talk-based meetups and identify potential speakers

Bring your laptop if you’d like. It's totally optional.

New to BEAM languages, or just curious? You’re very welcome.

Please RSVP so we know roughly how many people to expect. If your plans change, un-RSVP when you can.

This meetup is also part of our transition away from Meetup to a new home for the group, where we’ll be organizing future events.

The Power in the Pause, The Bravery in the Shift

You’re invited to an inspiring morning with Shi Choong, Founder & Event Producer of Women Who Dare PDX. This intimate speaker event will explore the deeper mission behind WWD and the transformational theme for 2026: “The Power in the Pause, The Bravery in the Shift.” This event is for women and allies who support women empowerment and lifting women up.

In this session, Shi will share: ✨ Her personal journey of courage, reinvention, and leadership ✨ Why intentional pauses and pivotal life shifts shape who we become ✨ How Women Who Dare creates spaces for women to be seen, heard & celebrated ✨ What to expect at the March 8, 2026 WWD Conference

If you’re navigating change, seeking clarity, or craving a community that supports your evolution—this conversation will speak to your heart. Bring a friend, your journal, or simply your open mind. Prepare to feel inspired, grounded, and ready to rise.

RSVP (free): https://www.meetup.com/startup-your-startup/events/312356008/

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Come join Community Broadband PDX to talk about building a publicly owned broadband network here in Portland.

RSVP to be added to our mailing list!a

There will be Snacks! This is a kid friendly event!

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Let’s kick off 2025 with another great evening of cloud-native learning, real-world talks, and hallway conversations with Portland’s platform-engineering community.

Date: Thursday, January 22 Time: 5:30–7:30 PM Location: Reperio Health, 4784 SE 17th Ave Suite 120, Portland, OR Recording: Talks are typically recorded (opt-in by speakers)

The Observability Reset: 4 Foundational Principles for O11y That Scales by Noam Levy, CTO at groundcover

Let’s face it, collecting metrics, logs, and traces isn’t enough anymore. Most o11y stacks today are drowning in telemetry, buried in cost overruns, and spread so thin across tools that they’ve become more noise than signal. The classic SaaS-based model is cracking.

This talk lays out 4 foundational principles for building a sustainable observability posture - that scale with infra and budget:

• Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC): SaaS o11y is financially unsustainable at scale.
• Consolidate or Bust: DevEx suffers when visibility is fragmented- consolidation isn’t a luxury - it’s a requirement.
• Standardize Everything: Open protocols, pluggable pipelines, and vendor-neutral APIs are the only way forward, or your o11y is a ticking liability.
• Self-Reliance: You can’t rely on app-level instrumentation forever - eBPF enables scalable o11y without complexity

This session pulls from real-world deployments and lessons learned helping engineering teams scale visibility without compromise.

#

“What It’s Like to Learn Cloud-Native Today — A Beginner’s Kubernetes Story” by Kelis Hightower

When given the chance to explore cloud-native development, I chose not to avoid the unfamiliar. With no prior Kubernetes experience and only a few weeks to learn, I took a hands-on approach by building a small burnout-aware study tool to ground abstract concepts in something tangible.

This talk shares what it’s like to learn cloud-native technologies today from a beginner’s perspective. Through experimentation with containers, Kubernetes, and cloud services, I’ll reflect on the mental model shifts, early misconceptions, and “aha” moments that emerged from learning by building. Rather than focusing on expertise, this would offer an honest look at what beginners actually take away from a short, modern introduction to cloud-native systems.

Agenda

5:30–6:00 — Check-in, snacks, networking 6:00–6:30 — The Observability Reset (Noam Levy) 6:30–7:00 — Beginner’s Kubernetes Story (Kelis Hightower) 7:00–7:30 — Networking (and games if anyone wants to bring some!)

Who Should Attend

Platform engineers, SREs, DevOps, app/platform teams, OSS maintainers, beginners learning cloud-native, and anyone curious about observability, Kubernetes, modern infra, or developer experience.

Sponsors

Venue Sponsor — Reperio Health F&B Sponsor — groundcover

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Topic

This talk explores the incredible power of tiny CSS snippets that create big accessibility improvements, proving that sometimes the most impactful code is measured in lines, not libraries. We'll dive deep into practical, copy-paste-ready CSS solutions that require minimal implementation time but deliver maximum inclusivity. Each snippet comes with real-world context, showing exactly how these small changes impact actual users.

Agenda

The event begins at 6 pm; join early, starting at 5:45 pm for networking.

• 5:45–6:00pm Networking
• 6:00–6:15pm Introductions and announcements
• 6:15–6:45pm Presentation
• 6:45–7:15pm Q&A and discussion

About the presenter

Mike Mai is an expert in design systems, web accessibility, HTML/CSS, and typography. His design philosophy is rooted in a fundamental understanding of the web. Mike's passion for typography, cultivated during my BFA in Graphic Design at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, directly informed my decision to pursue web design professionally. He considers typography to be the most critical foundation of any website, given its text-centric nature, making typeface selection and typesetting my first order of business on any new projects.

Mike firmly believes that design is about solving problems, a principle instilled by a formative mentor. This conviction drove his path to specializing in accessible web design. While strong typographic forms are important, they must be balanced with robust function and an intuitive user experience. He is committed to ensuring all his designs are usable, useful, and truly inclusive.

RSVP

Please RSVP for the Zoom link:

• Meetup
• Eventbrite
• email

Accommodation requests

If you have any accommodation requests, don't hesitate to get in touch with us before the event to discuss.

Join the Portland AWS User Group for an evening of technical learning with other tech professionals!

Starting networking at 5:30 PM, Presentation at 6:00 PM

Enjoy drinks & PIZZA provided by ProFocus.

The Portland Linux Kernel Meetup for January 2026 will be at...

• Date: Friday, January 16, 2026
• Time: 06:00 PM to 09:00 PM US/Pacific
• Location: Lucky Labrador Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby St, Portland, Oregon 97209 US

Come enjoy a beverage and chat with other people who are interested in the Linux kernel. All experience levels are welcome. This is a friendly and casual meetup.

Look for a table with the plush Tux penguin.

To get timely reminders of Portland Linux Kernel Meetups, see https://ikluft.github.io/pdx-lkmu/subscribing-to-pdx-lkmu-events.html.

​Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures.

Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists.

All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)