People doing strange things with electricity!

Along with the usual freewheeling chaos, the quick talks continue this month with Zach Babb, presenting on: "Ripping Digital Identity through Magic: Multi-device Asynchronous Generic Input/output Consensus"

DorkbotPDX is a relaxed, informal show-and-tell for electronic artists, circuit designers, microcontroller programmers, retro computing enthusiasts, video game designers, digital archaeologists, and mod synth gearheads in Portland, Oregon.

Bring your electronic wonders, monsters, and works-in-progress for others to see, or come see what others have been working on! Whether it's code or circuits, electronic creativity of all sorts is welcome here.

Table space with power will be available for project show-and-tell; we'll have a table for drinks and snacks, feel free to contribute to the communal cache/BYOB. The Free cart is back, take or leave some components (don’t leave TOO much, if you have big stuff, maybe check the Discord/mailing list to see if anyone is interested in taking it first!)

Info and links to our Discord and other social channels are at https://dorkbotpdx.org

Join us for a casual year-end accessibility social! Chat about your favorite accessibility topics, meet new people, and discuss what you'd like to learn at events in the new year.

Location: The Zipper

The Zipper is a food court with multiple vendors providing different cuisines, including vegan and gluten-free options. Alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages are available. See individual vendors for menus. This event is no-host (each participant pays for their own food/drinks), but there's no obligation to buy something to attend.

Accessibility + COVID Safety

The location is wheelchair accessible, near public transit, and has street parking for bikes and cars. This event will be held outside in the covered patio space with outdoor ventilation and heaters.

We’re back for our December monthly mixer! Come mingle with your Out in Tech PDX community. Looking to meet new friends? Searching for new opportunities? Or simply looking to mingle in a queer space with other queer humans?

Come join Out in Tech PDX at Peacock PDX on Tuesday, December 2nd from 5:30pm to 8:30pm.

Whether you're interested in tech, working in tech, or you're tech-adjacent (hint: that's everyone), come mingle with us, have a beverage of choice, and meet the fabulous members of your PDX Out in Tech community.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Sip, snack, and slay... LGBTQ+ tech demos with plenty of sparkle ✨

What to expect ✨ 4 fabulous demos from your LGBTQ+ tech community 💻🏳️‍🌈, each 10–15 minutes with Q&A. After that, snacks 🥨, drinks 🍷🥤, and plenty of sparkle. Allies welcome, too 💕.

Schedule ⏰ - 6:00p — Doors and check-in 🚪 - 6:30p — Demos begin (10–15 min each + Q&A) 🎤 - 7:30p — Drinks, snacks, and mingling 🍻 - 9:00p — Close 🌙

Apply to demo 🎬 Got something fierce to show? Tell us what you’re building and why it slays 💅. Email us at [email protected]

Food & drink 🍽️ Beer 🍺, wine 🍷, and non-alcoholic options 🧃. You must be 21+ to consume alcohol 🪪.

Food available at the food cart pod next door!

Photos 📸 Event photos may be taken by OIT staff. If you’d prefer not to appear, let us know when you arrive 🙅‍♂️🙅‍♀️.

House rules 📖 - We follow the OIT Code of Conduct: outintech.com/conduct 🌐 - Be kind 💜. Ask before photos 🙋. - If you feel unsafe, find an organizer wearing an OIT shirt 👕.

Get involved 🌈 - Volunteer with OIT PDX:[email protected] - Join the community: outintech.com/join - IG/Twitter: @outintech

What if you didn’t need to move to SF to be a builder? What if the same energy that fuels the frontier could happen right here in Portland?

​That’s the idea behind Open Build — a hands-on event where AI-native developers, indie hackers, and curious tinkerers come together to experiment, create, and connect using Windsurf, the AI-powered coding environment that’s redefining how builders work.

​Join us for an evening of creativity, collaboration, and good vibes — plus free Windsurf credits, exclusive swag, and direct time with the Windsurf team.

Breaking Into the Education Market: How to Sell Your Product in EdTech

Thinking about launching or scaling a product for the education sector? Whether your innovation is designed for K–12 classrooms, higher ed, district administrators, workforce training, or lifelong learners, the education market comes with unique challenges—and enormous opportunity.

This session focuses on how early-stage founders can move from idea to traction by understanding how education markets actually buy, and how to turn early wins into sustainable growth. Hear from experienced founders and industry experts who have successfully navigated the edtech landscape and lived to tell the tale.

The panel will discuss:

Key differences across K–12, higher ed, and consumer learning

How to get your product in front of educators, decision-makers, and influencers

What to expect from the sales cycle

The importance of proving outcomes.

Opportunities in adult learning, professional development, corporate upskilling, and lifelong learning

Whether you’re at the idea stage or preparing to scale, you’ll walk away with practical insights, realistic expectations, and strategies to build credibility and adoption in one of the most rewarding (and complex) markets.

Panelists include

Justin Wolske (Moderator) | Chief Product Officer, Yellowbrick

Pamela Judge| EdTech Demand Generation and RevOps leader

John Moore | Global Edtech Executive & Experienced Founder

Shannon Schrecengost | Principal Consultant, Serendipity Lane

Scott Wallace K-12 EdTech Sales Leader

Agenda

5:00-5:15p: Networking

5:15 - 6:15p: Panel & Q&A

6:15-6:45p: Founder Pitches (3 startups pitch their sales strategies and get live feedback)

6:45-7:00pp: Event Wrap & Next Steps

Cost: FREE (snacks and light refreshments provided)

ABOUT LRN|PDX

LRN|PDX is a new initiative designed to serve education-focused ventures across the Portland and Oregon entrepreneurship ecosystems. Sponsored by Airy Disc Learning and the Metro Region Innovation Hub, LRN|PDX provides programming, networking opportunity, and expertise to help entrepreneurs solve the most pressing problems across the education landscape.

The Portland Linux Kernel Meetup for November 2025 will be at...

• Date: Thursday, November 13, 2025
• 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.

People doing strange things with electricity! Along with the usual freewheeling chaos, the quick talks continue this month with Daniel Temkin, author of the new book "Forty-four Esolangs: The Art of Esoteric Code":

"Software art is widely accepted, but can programming languages themselves be art? The new book Forty-Four Esolangs makes this argument, collecting work by a single artist who poses code as prayer to the Greek gods, patterns of empty folders, or typed in tandem by two programmers, the rhythm and synchrony of their typing determining commands. Temkin will share projects from the book in the context of thirty plus years of esolangs, showing the poetic possibilities of this medium.”

DorkbotPDX is a relaxed, informal show-and-tell for electronic artists, circuit designers, microcontroller programmers, retro computing enthusiasts, video game designers, digital archaeologists, and mod synth gearheads in Portland, Oregon.

Bring your electronic wonders, monsters, and works-in-progress for others to see, or come see what others have been working on! Whether it's code or circuits, electronic creativity of all sorts is welcome here.

Table space with power will be available for project show-and-tell; we'll have a table for drinks and snacks, feel free to contribute to the communal cache/BYOB. The Free cart is back, take or leave some components (don’t leave TOO much, if you have big stuff, maybe check the Discord/mailing list to see if anyone is interested in taking it first!)

Info and links to our Discord and other social channels are at https://dorkbotpdx.org

Hey PDX AI enthusiasts! Ready to connect, learn, and have some fun? Join us for The PDX Hacking Agents meetup hosted by IBM.

​Whether you're an AI developer, engineer, or just someone excited to learn more, this meetup is the perfect spot to mingle, share ideas, and geek out about all things AI.

​​We'll have engaging talks from speakers, plenty of time to network with fellow AI enthusiasts, and of course, some tasty light refreshments to keep the conversations flowing.

​We’ll kick things off by building an AI Agent live, showcasing both an MCP server and client in action. You’ll learn what makes Agentic AI enterprise-ready, from scalability to governance, and see a real-world industry case study showing how Agentic AI is already transforming a specific vertical. Expect a fast-paced, practical, and insight-rich experience that connects the technical foundations to real business impact.

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/cloud-native-pdx/events/311422780/

OpenSearch - Your Friendly Neighborhood Vector Database by Nathan Boot @ AWS

OpenSearch, aside from being a search, analytics, and observability solution, often gets overlooked as a fully functioning open source vector database. I’d very much like the opportunity to showcase the progress we’ve made here at the OpenSearch project implementing vector database operations and making them accessible to developers of all skill levels.

Let’s learn how to create and query vector embeddings, the basis for semantic search and RAG. You’ll get introduced to embeddings, vectors and semantic search in this “OpenSearch Vector Operations for Dummies” presentation. Hopefully it will bring a user-friendly path on a battle tested, fully open source platform.

Edge Orchestration: Challenges and Solutions by Scott Baker @ Intel

The edge differs from the cloud – rather than consisting of a handful of centralized infinitely-elastic Kubernetes clusters, the edge consists of thousands of geographically distributed edge nodes, often with constrained resources. The talk will begin with a discussion of the edge, how it differs from the cloud, and the unique challenges that this presents. After the overview of the edge, we will discuss Intel’s Open Edge Platform and its Edge Manageability Framework (EMF) that was built to demonstrate orchestration of edge nodes, Kubernetes Clusters, and applications to those clusters. The software is fully open source, actively developed, and readily available on GitHub.

We will discuss how we onboard and lifecycle the nodes, how we bring up Kubernetes clusters with our CAPI-based cluster management layer, and how we deploy and manage applications to those clusters. We will introduce technologies that enable the edge, such as Intel’s vPRO and Edge Microvisor Toolkit (EMT). We will talk about the architecture and design of this open-source project, and if time and connectivity permits, we will do a short demo to get a feel of the user interface.

Agenda

5:30–6:00 — Check-in, snacks, networking 6:00–6:30 — OpenSearch - Your Friendly Neighborhood Vector Database 6:30 - 7:00 — Edge Orchestration: Challenges and Solutions 7:00–8:00 — Networking (and games if anyone wants to bring some!)

Who Should Attend

Platform engineers, SREs, DevOps, app/platform teams, OSS maintainers, and anyone curious about Kubernetes, supply chain security, observability, eBPF/WASM, finops, or AI for infra/devex.

We’re back for our November monthly mixer! Come mingle with your Out in Tech PDX community. Looking to meet new friends? Searching for new opportunities? Or simply looking to celebrate Pride Month in a queer space with other queer humans?

Come join Out in Tech PDX at White Owl on Wednesday, November 5th from 6pm to 9pm.

Whether you're interested in tech, working in tech, or you're tech-adjacent (hint: that's everyone), come mingle with us, have a beverage of choice, and meet the fabulous members of your PDX Out in Tech community.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Join us for the October edition of ProductTank PDX!

We’re excited to welcome two incredible speakers, Sarah Crispin (Product Management, Strategy & Operations Consultant) and Justin Wolske (Chief Product Officer @ Yellowbrick), for an evening exploring the problem with problems, and how to leverage frameworks to move fast. As always, we’ll also have plenty of time to meet other product folks over drinks and tasty snacks.

📅 Wednesday, October 29, 2025 🕕 6:00 – 8:00pm 📍 Kiln

Lighting the Frameworks on Fire

We learn a lot about best practices and frameworks, but it’s rare that product managers find themselves with the space and time to use them as intended. This is a story about learning the rules of the game you’re actually playing so that you can adjust your approach and cobble tools together to move fast, play hard, and maybe even score. Spoiler: success in this endeavor requires an A+ team and, if we’re being honest, luck.

About Sarah: Sarah found her way to product management after teaching middle school, coaching collegiate track & field, and working as a management consultant. In her most recent full-time role, Sarah served as a Global Director of Product at ASICS, where she worked to pivot a legacy fitness app. Originally from Maine, Sarah moved to Portland after almost 20 years in Boston. She loves dogs, running in the woods, learning about big ideas, and sports documentaries (recommendations welcome).

The Problem with Problems: Rethinking Urgency

A discussion centered around reframing problems as jobs to be done, and how that helps you build better personas and psychographics. The talk is catered first toward early-stage founders with product responsibilities (others can find something useful, too).

About Justin: Film producer by trade, he has worked in EdTech since 1999. Currently, he's the Chief Product Officer @ Yellowbrick and Principal @ Airy Disc Learning. His areas of focus are around digital learning products (with a specialization in using narrative-based pedagogies to drive executive-function learning), media production, lean/agile product development, and early/mid-stage entrepreneurship strategy.

🎉 Don’t miss it!

Come connect with fellow product managers, designers, engineers, and enthusiasts over drinks and snacks. See you there!

Bridgespace Coworking @ Place To B

Location: 1661 SE 3rd Ave, Portland, OR 97214 RSVP: https://luma.com/jxpmfmpt

Come for the productivity, stay for the vibes 🌿 Join us for a full day of coworking, community, and connection — featuring the Best Sound Bath in Portland with Graham Slick from Aloka Sound Bath House.

Schedule — Every Wednesday

9:00 AM — Coworking Opens 11:00 AM — Morning Introductions 12:00 PM — Sound Bath with Graham Slick @ Aloka Sound Bath House 12:45 PM — “Together Lunchies” 2:00 PM — Deep Work, Productivity & Connection 5:00 PM — End

All-Day Bonus:

💻 Free Website-Making Assistance Offered by the PDX Web, Code & Design community — every Wednesday from 9 AM – 5 PM. Come get hands-on help launching your website on Squarespace or WordPress — totally free.

👉 RSVP for the Sound Bath (limited space!) https://luma.com/jvltmims

RainSec is an informal group of like-minded security professionals who meet to network and discuss topics of interest in a non-work, non-vendor setting.

While our target audience is experienced information security professionals, this is a public event open to any interested parties. If you have a friend or colleague who might benefit, please pass an invite along.

Please follow us on Bluesky (@rainsec.org) or Mastodon ([email protected]) for any last minute updates.

COVID-19 Precautions:

• We meet outside under a covered patio area to reduce transmission risk.
  • There are overhead heaters if it's cold, but dress comfortably!
• If you are feeling sick, stay home!
• If you've had a recent COVID exposure, stay home!

You can also find us on Meetup.com and Smoke Signal (AT Protocol).

If you're looking for more security-focused community meetups in the Portland area, check out pdx-infosec.com

Join Product Lunch PDX for an engaging session, whether you are a seasoned product manager or someone looking to break into the world of product development. This event is perfect for anyone interested in learning and networking with like-minded professionals. Come prepared to dive deep into the world of product management and walk away with valuable tips and strategies that you can implement in your own projects. Don't miss out on this opportunity to enhance your skills and take your product development process to the next level!

Topic

Accessibility at your org doesn’t need another pitch deck. It needs a brand. In this session, you'll learn how to market accessibility like a movement: using storytelling, emotional resonance, and brand-building techniques to influence culture, elevating far above compliance. Whether you're a developer, designer, or advocate, you'll walk away with practical ways to boost visibility, build momentum, and reframe accessibility as something people want to rally around accessibility as a movement, not check boxes. (Spoiler alert: you’re the one who can make it happen!)

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

Dr. Angela Young, CPACC (they/them) is a renowned Senior Accessibility Consultant and advocate for workplace wellbeing, specializing in empowering queer, neurodiverse, and disabled professionals. Based in the Washington DC-Baltimore area, they have dedicated nearly two decades to promoting diversity and inclusion. Dr. Young holds a Doctor of Education from the University of Maryland and has worked extensively in education, learning & development, and digital accessibility. As an international speaker, they have addressed audiences globally, advocating for accessibility and inclusion in various sectors. Dr. Young is also known for their work in personal branding and has founded "A11y With Angela," a platform focused on accessibility and inclusion.

Follow and connect with Dr. Young at https://linktr.ee/a11ywithangela.

Accommodation requests

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

Sun Souls and the Community Leaders of the Future of Work unite to create Oregon’s most soul-centered coworking space, where wellness meets work and everyone is welcome. From tarot readers to vibe coders, AI engineers to civil engineers in heart chakra form, this is a home for remarkable talent across every field. Financial analysts, remote workers, virtual companies, and creative misfits alike here, you’re not just seen, you’re celebrated. With the best wellness program in the state, we’re redefining productivity through connection, balance, and purpose. This is your sanctuary. A hub of communities. A portal for the future of work. Built for now. Designed for what’s next.

Open Coworking will always be free for Wellness Wednesdays. <3 #reset

Schedule 9am : Coworking Opens and Starts. 11am : Morning Introductions 12pm : Wellness Session (Breathwork/Sound Bath TBC) 12.45pm : Together Lunchies. 2.00pm : Hard-work Productivity & Connection 5.00pm : End

ps : Then we head to The Haven PDX for Social Night and Elixirs.

Who is this for? Whether you are a seasoned software developer, a budding tech enthusiast, or whoever, this event offers a welcoming space for neurodivergent nerds. We are queer and trans led and welcome individuals of all backgrounds. Join us for an evening of community building!

Where Will We be? For winter we will be meeting online for covid friendlyndliness and sensory comfort.

What are we doing? Socializing, talking about challenges at work, talking about life, building community.

The Portland Linux Kernel Meetup for October 2025 will be at...

• Date: Thursday, October 16, 2025
• 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. Hopefully it will be nice enough to be outside. Otherwise, look for a table inside.

Portland People United By Shopify. Have a beverage. Come ready to share your project or get help on that Shopify Theme or App.

Details Build & Brew is our chance to get together in person, have a beverage, share a project, ask questions, get help, network and unite around all things Shopify. I highly encourage you to bring your laptop and get interactive in this casual environment amongst fellow community members.

This event is graciously hosted at Great Notion Brewing on NW 28th in the Montgomery Park area. It is open to all PDX Shopify members and their extended network. So if you have a friend or frenemy who would like to join us, please bring them along.

Please RSVP to this event so we can prepare accordingly with our sponsor.

All registered PDX Shopify Meetup LinkedIn Group Members will receive a ticket for a complimentary beverage provided by our event sponsor: Great Notion Brewing. I highly recommend the Blueberry Tart - it's delicious!

If you have not registered for our LinkedIn Group, please do so here BEFORE the event so we can prepare your Name Tag and Beverage Ticket:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14596268/

We look forward to seeing you!

• Brian

Along with the variety of spooky DIY projects that are sure to show up this month, we're continuing our new series of quick talks in the midst of the usual free-flowing chaos. This month's talk is by Jonathan Moore:

"Half again as much means twice the fun!" - Up until the 20 nm process node—the end of the planar-transistor era—the cost per transistor was halving on a regular cadence. Historically, we’ve used that bounty to boost CPU capabilities, but it also meant we could design CPUs that cost half as much. This talk explores that path: what’s happened with cheap CPUs/MCUs and what it might mean for hackers and open hardware.

People doing strange things with electricity!

DorkbotPDX is a relaxed, informal show-and-tell for electronic artists, circuit designers, microcontroller programmers, retro computing enthusiasts, video game designers, digital archaeologists, and mod synth gearheads in Portland, Oregon.

Bring your electronic wonders, monsters, and works-in-progress for others to see, or come see what others have been working on! Whether it's code or circuits, electronic creativity of all sorts is welcome here.

Table space with power will be available for project show-and-tell; we'll have a table for drinks and snacks, feel free to contribute to the communal cache/BYOB. The Free cart is back, take or leave some components (don’t leave TOO much, if you have big stuff, maybe check the Discord/mailing list to see if anyone is interested in taking it first!)

Info and links to our Discord and other social channels are at https://dorkbotpdx.org

CALLING ALL EDUCATION ENTREPRENEURS!

Are you passionate about solving problems in education? Early-stage founders for education ventures face a lot of unique challenges, but also some unique opportunities. We're building a new event series for you called LRN|PDX!

Whether you want to build a for-profit, non-profit, or public-private venture, LRN|PDX is a monthly event series for entrepreneurs across the learning section, from K-to-Grey. We'll be delivering essential, from-the-trenches programming that ed founders need to hit those first milestones.

Join us for our first event:

Problem-Hunting for Ed Founders: Finding Problem-Solution Fit for Your Education Venture

Speakers: Justin Wolske (Chief Product Officer, Yellowbrick; Asad Butt (Director, Metro Region Innovation Hub); Other speakers TBD

Agenda

9a-10a: Founder Networking

10a-11a: Presentations

11a-12p: Founder Breakout Groups

Cost: FREE (light refreshments provided)

ABOUT LRN|PDX

LRN|PDX is a new initiative designed to serve education-focused ventures across the Portland and Oregon entrepreneurship ecosystems. Sponsored by Airy Disc Learning and the Metro Region Innovation Hub, LRN|PDX provides programming, networking opportunity, and expertise to help entrepreneurs solve the most pressing problems across the education landscape. If your organization is interested in joining LRN|PDX, please reach out to Justin or Asad.

RainSec is an informal group of like-minded security professionals who meet to network and discuss topics of interest in a non-work, non-vendor setting.

While our target audience is experienced information security professionals, this is a public event open to any interested parties. If you have a friend or colleague who might benefit, please pass an invite along.

Please follow us on Bluesky (@rainsec.org) or Mastodon ([email protected]) for any last minute updates.

COVID-19 Precautions:

• We meet outside under a covered patio area to reduce transmission risk.
  • There are overhead heaters if it's cold, but dress comfortably!
• If you are feeling sick, stay home!
• If you've had a recent COVID exposure, stay home!

You can also find us on Meetup.com and Smoke Signal (AT Protocol).

If you're looking for more security-focused community meetups in the Portland area, check out pdx-infosec.com

What would internet access look like if it wasn't controlled by megacorps, but by YOU. Publicly-owned infrastructure isn't new and it doesn't have to stay a dream in Portland. Come out and chat with other people fed up with the status quo.

Podcasting, speaking, and social media for people who have a message.

This is the first meeting of a new group of people interested in learning about podcasting, speaking, or creating social media to get your message out.

We want to create a community in Portland where people with experience in these areas can join with people who are curious about starting or working their way through their journey to share their message with the world.

Now more than ever, Portland (and the world!) needs your creative voice championing your vision for a more fair, just, healthy, and wealthy world for everyone.

Whether your thing is crafts or politics, small business or art, friends or enemies, we want PDX Podium to be an additional lift beneath your wings.

Join us at the new Nedspace location on 621 SW Morrison St #800, Portland, OR 97205

Topic

Our coaching practice blends the sharp eye of an engineer with the steady guidance of a mentor. We work directly with development teams to level up their accessibility maturity—teaching not just the how of accessible code, but the why of inclusive design. Coaches serve as half engineer, half strategist: diving into code reviews, walking through practical fixes, and helping teams adopt sustainable practices. The goal isn’t just compliance—it’s building teams that confidently deliver accessible products, sprint after sprint, until accessibility becomes as natural as writing a div.

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 & announcements
• 6:15–7:00pm Presentation
• 7:00–7:30pm Q&A and discussion
• 7:30–7:45pm Wrap up

About the presenter

Jaunita Flessas is senior digital accessibility leader with 8+ years of experience combining training, development, and accessibility expertise to expand accessibility standards and practices across the industry. She's a leader in digital accessibility, defining the future of the web and accessibility standards with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Internet Society (ISOC), and the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). Jaunita is passionate about creating a web that's free, fair, and accessible to everyone.

Accommodation requests

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

Nailing Product-Market Fit Workshop Series Session 1: Building & Testing your MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

​ProductTheory.io workshop series at Kiln: ​There’s one challenge all founders have in common, especially in 2025. It’s achieving product market fit.

​This free workshop series at Kiln is based on ProductTheory’s celebrated Product-Market Fit Canvas: a framework for ensuring smart, data-driven product development and market strategy.

​Open to both Kiln members and the broader entrepreneurial community. Non-members get a free day pass to Kiln with their participation.

​Why This Series Matters: Dr. Ali Maaxa has spent 20 years in the trenches - from Big Tech innovation teams to zero-to-one product launches. She's seen what works and what wastes time. These aren't theoretical workshops; they're based on frameworks that have powered successful launches for AWS, Recreation.gov, and dozens of startups who went from idea to revenue.

​Free for both Kiln members and the broader community because great products make everyone's ecosystem stronger. Just show up ready to work.

​Session 1: Early Stages - Building Your First Customer-Facing Version (MVP) ​Build smart from day one.

​You're at one of the most exciting and challenging stages of your journey - turning your vision into something real. The decisions you make now about what to build first will shape everything that follows. In this session, we'll walk through how to create your MVP (Minimum Viable Product - your first testable version) strategically. Whether you're technical or business-focused, you'll gain clarity on prioritizing features, validating assumptions early, and building momentum with real user feedback. This is about setting yourself up for sustainable growth from the start.

​The Upcoming Product-Market Fit Series at KILN PDX

​A Free Workshop for All Founders, Product People & Innovators ​This free workshop series at Kiln is based on ProductTheory’s celebrated Product-Market Fit Canvas: a framework for ensuring smart, data-driven product development and market strategy. Open to both Kiln members and the broader entrepreneurial community.

​Session 2: : Understanding Your Ideal Customer Profile https://luma.com/7zmulrns 10/1/25, Noon, Kiln

​Session 3: Go-to-Market Strategy: New Approaches for the 2025 Landscape https://lu.ma/xstcod52 10/8/25, 11:00 a.m., Kiln:

​Session 4: Product-Market Discovery: A Deep-Dive for Learning, Testing & Earning with Customers & Users https://luma.com/dx4xeeji 10/20/25, 1-3 p.m., Kiln

​Open to both Kiln members and the broader entrepreneurial community. Non-members get a free day pass to Kiln with their participation.

Location Kiln 1120 SE Madison St, Portland, OR 97214, USA

Who is this for? Whether you are a seasoned software developer, a budding tech enthusiast, or whoever, this event offers a welcoming space for neurodivergent nerds. We are queer and trans led and welcome individuals of all backgrounds. Join us for an evening of community building!

Where Will We be? For winter we will be meeting online for covid friendlyndliness and sensory comfort.

What are we doing? Socializing, talking about challenges at work, talking about life, building community.

Stay tuned here and our newsletter for more information on this event. In the meantime, you can review the information below or at cdmp.info/about and dama.org for more information on the exam format.

Data PDX will be hosting a “pay-if-you-pass” event for the Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) exam. At this in-person event, you may attempt to pass the CDMP. If you don’t pass, you pay nothing. This is a low-risk, high-reward opportunity to obtain a valuable certificate in the data management / governance field.

RSVP required, check DataPDX.org for link to register soon: https://datapdx.org/2025/03/13/upcomingpay-if-you-pass-certified-data-management-professional-cdmp-event/

The September 2025 Portland Linux Kernel Meetup will be at...

Thursday, September 18, 2025
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM PDT
Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
1945 NW Quimby St
Portland, Oregon 97209

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.

Founders Live is back!

Join us for an incredible evening… Founders Live is an unforgettable competition sweeping the globe.

5 Founders

99 second each

4 minutes of audience Q&A

YOUR VOTES decide the winner!

So bring your friends and coworkers, grab some food and drink, get to know your local entrepreneurs, and vote for what you think will be the next big thing… built in the PDX.

Starring Erik Svilich as the new city leader

Competing Founders and Startups TBD

Interested in pitching at this or a future event? Apply here: https://www.founderslive.com/pitch

Agenda 6:00 - Networking and Happy Hour

7:00 - Announcements, Sponsors and Pitch Competition

8:00 - More Networking + After-Party hangout

Winners The Founders Live winners package includes:

The Professional Boost membership with over $1,000,000 in cash savings on 100+ essential apps and services for startups An appearance in the Founders Live Prime Time regional qualifiers with a chance to advance to our Prime Time global event in the fall.

Please RSVP on Meetup if you have an account

Come out and join us to network with local cloud native peers.

Agenda: 5:00pm to 5:30pm – Munchies and Networking! Food sponsored by Red Hat

5:45pm - A conversation (or maybe surprise talk!) with Kelsey Hightower

Kelsey is a renowned software engineer, developer advocate, and speaker—celebrated for his role in shaping Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructure, and previously a Distinguished Engineer at Google Cloud

6:15pm - The -ization of Containerization by Eric Ernst, Apple

The recent open sourcing of Apple Containerization framework and Container tooling projects enable developers to create and run Linux container images directly on their Mac in a way that focuses on security and privacy. In this talk we’ll talk about the container CLI tool and how it utilizes Containerization to provide simple yet powerful functionality to build, run and deploy Linux containers on Mac. We’ll talk about the architecture, why we wrote the framework and tool in Swift, what future development looks like, and how the community can get involved.

6:45pm - Kubernetes Operators by Wuxin Zeng, Red Hat

7:30pm – Networking and Board games!

None of this would be possible without our amazing sponsors:

Thanks to Reperio Health for sponsoring the meetup space
Thanks to Red Hat for sponsoring the food

An AI Institute

Led by Ameeta Agarwal, Richard Coffey, Douglas Hanes, Martin Smith, Matthew Sottile, Peter Vickery

Part conversation with experts, part unconference, and part hands-on experimentation, we hope you come away with a fluency, confidence, and understanding to engage further (critically and creatively) with this rapidly evolving and increasingly prevalent technology, and find a community to continue this dialogue.

Learn more about the current state and future of the thing called “AI” at the moment. What it is and isn’t, what’s real and what’s hype; what can it do and what are its limitations; What are applications and implications. What are potential avenues where it can do amazing things? What does it mean for the future of learning, work, and innovation? And should we worry?

This introductory convening — a collaborative conversation and experiential learning — will lead to more advanced skill-building and topically-focussed workshops, hackathon, and an unconference and symposium later in the fall and winter.