Welcome to TechSPARK’s regular events round-up, summarising the upcoming tech-related events in Bristol and Bath!
*Featured Event* Digital Bristol Week, 2 -8 February 2015
Digital Bristol Week returns to Bristol from Monday 2 to Sunday 8 February 2015 with an exciting schedule packed with a great selection of free events to develop your creative career and contacts.
This hugely successful collaboration – which on its debut in 2013 reached some 500 industry professionals – is back for a second event… And this time it’s even better.
From a jam packed Digital Skills Day for creative professionals and a Games Day presented by GamesLab and even workshops giving young people the skills to learn how to code, build web applications and create their own games at the Digimakers: Digital Makers Day. The week will prove invaluable in the opportunities it provides to to learn and develop your skills as well as network with other creative professionals in the South West.
Find out about all the fantastic Digital Bristol Week events and workshops.
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High Tech Industries – ‘Immersion’ Skills Workshop, Bristol & Bath Science Park, 29 January @ 4 -8pmThe West of England Local Enterprise Partnership is running its first ‘Immersion’ skills workshop & networking evening this January, at Bristol & Bath Science Park. Working towards building a collaborative approach to the skills needs of the High Tech industries in the West of England, this evening will give you the opportunity to feed into the West of England High Tech future Skills Plan, voice your opinion, meet other skills providers and companies in the West of England and more. |
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umBristol Talks, Gibe Digital, 29 January @ 6pmJoin umBristol, the Bristol Umbraco User Group for their first meetup of 2015. They meet regularly for informal gatherings as well as talks from local Umbraco businesses with this month’s meetup being hosted by Gibe Digital. |
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The Pulse – What is Seed Funding?, Toto’s Wine Bar, 29 January @ 6.30pmThe Pulse is a community of entrepreneurs, founders and business owners who aim to support small businesses and startups in the South West. This month they’re joined by a panel of experts on venture capital and funding.
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Young Entrepreneur Networking Association, The Square Club, 29 January @ 7.30 -10.30pmThe Young Entrepreneur Networking Association (YENA) is an organisation aimed at enabling young entrepreneurs (aged 15-30) to meet new people and expand on their network. Join them for free for some casual networking and a talk from The Six Week Startup Guys on ‘How To Start A Business Every Six Weeks’. Register for your free ticket to the January Young Entrepreneur Networking Event. |
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Bristol Games Hub Anti-Social, 29 January @ 7.30pmBristol Games Hub is a non-profit organisation that provides working space in Bristol where game developers and academics come together under one roof to create and study games. They’ve just set up their first meetup group to advertise their monthly gatherings for members of the hub or whose would like to learn more about video games production. The meetups are generally informal but often have a few talks thrown in for good measure. Join the Bristol Games Hub Anti-Social and stay up to date with their regular meetups! |
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The Film and Video Meetup, The Guild Coworking Hub, 30 January @ 11am -12pmA great new lunchtime meetup group for those who are avid film fans or who work in film, video or TV or are interested in finding out more! Find out more and sign up for free to the first Film and Video Meetup. |
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Discussion: The Employer Ownership of Skills Fund Working Lunch, West of England LEP Office, 30 January @ 12 -1.30pmThe Employer Ownership of Skills Fund is designed to encourage businesses to increase their investment in and commitment to, skills development. This working lunch, hosted by the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership, is aimed at small to medium sized businesses looking for funding to help them invest in the skills development of their current and future engineers. A great opportunity for businesses to ask any questions they have about the fund – and it’s free too! Get free tickets to the Employer Ownership of Skills Fund Working Lunch. |
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Lunchtime Talk: Syncself 2 – How Tech can enhance the Storytelling Experience, Pervasive Media Studio, 30 January @ 1 -2pmPervasive Media offer free lunchtime talks every Friday afternoon. This week digital media artist, filmmaker and creator of SYNCSELF2 Karen Palmer will be exploring how combining art, tech and gamification can focus and train the mind and empower the user. Check out the Pervasive Media site for more information on this week’s talk on SELFSYNC2. |
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SETsquared Workshop: Making the most of Mentors, The Engine Shed, 3 February @ 10am -12pmSETsquared, business accelerator, is offering a workshop for SETsquared members, local students (UWE, Bristol and Bath Universities), as well as external delegates with the aim of helping you to understand better what mentors can do for you and how best to prepare to take full advantage of mentors offered by SETsquared in 2015. Get your tickets to attend the SETsquared workshop on making the most of mentors. |
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Skills empowerment workshop for women working in the games industry, Pervasive Media Studio, 3 February @ 10am -5pmNext Gen Skills Academy (NGSA) is an industry-led education initiative to develop the next generation of talent for the Games, Animation and VFX industries. Following extensive research, this workshop is aimed at women working in the games industry to help empower them with the skills they’ve identified as wanting to develop in. Joined by experts such as Liz Rivers of Liz Rivers Executive Coaching for Women Leaders and Natalie Griffith, the founder of PressSpace PR, the workshop will cover the development of many skills, ranging from leadership and management skills to personal branding. Buy your tickets to the Skills empowerment workshop for just £25! |
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Docker Bristol Meetup, The Engine Shed, 3 February @ 6pmDocker is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications. Do you code in Docker or are you interested in learning more about it? Why not meet other developers and ops engineers using Docker at this free meetup in Bristol. |
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Bristol Java Meetup – Java Application Performance Monitoring, Brightpearl Office, 3 February @ 7pmBristol Java Meetup is a group for everyone interested in discussing Java technology, JVM languages, frameworks and libraries in the Java space.
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SETsquared and the West of England Academic Health Science Network, M Shed, 4 – 6 February @ 10am -4pmThis one-day event is designed for early stage innovators who have an innovative healthcare proposition in mind and would like to develop their ideas. With a range of talks, discussions, workshops and one-to-one clinics throughout the day, the goal of the event is to provide innovators with an insightful and comprehensive introduction to the techniques and processes of taking an innovative business idea to maturity in an NHS setting. |
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WEDF Talk // 4Creative – Born Risky, The Arnolfini, 4 February @ 7 -9pmJoin the West of England Design Forum (WEDF) for a talk by Alice Tonge, the Creative Director at 4Creative, the multi-awarded in-house creative agency for Channel 4. |
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BathSPARK Coffee and Networking, The Guild Coworking Hub, 5 February @ 10.30 -11.30amBathSPARK have now reintroduced their popular drop-in coffee mornings for the first quarter of 2015, an informal networking event where you can meet other people working in tech in the local area. The forum is there to connect people, spark ideas, and create introductions. At the very least the BathSPARK team will be there to have a chat and help connect you to the right people. Register and sign up to BathSPARK and their Coffee and Networking for free! |
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Introducing the Cleanweb: Where Cleantech meets the web, The Engine ShedLast year Bristol was not only named Britain’s most liveable city but was also voted as the European Green Capital for 2015! As part of the related International Greentech Festival, this event aims to bring together some of the region’s most interesting and innovative cleanweb tech projects (sustainable tech). |
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HBB: Embedded Software SIG Workshop, 6 February @ 12 -1.30pmNewly formed organisation High Tech Bristol and Bath (HBB) have organised a line up of events and workshops with this being the first. Aimed at senior engineers or rising stars in the world of Embedded Software, this workshop will be a discussion of the current and future strategies for addressing the challenge of verification. Entry is free for your first workshop so why not sign up to the Embedded Software workshop and find out more about what HBB is all about. |
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Develop Me: Introduction to Web with HTML & CSS, The Guild Coworking Hub, 9 February @ 9am -6pmWant to know what the web is all about and how to build websites? This full-day course will introduce you to the two fundamental technologies needed to build a website and get you started on your journey to becoming a web designer! You’ll be introduced to web markup (HTML) and styling (CSS), as well as using Bootstrap, a CSS framework, to make creating websites easier. The workshop is aimed at total beginners and costs just £99. Get your ticket to attend the Introduction to Web with HTML & CSS. |
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SETsquared Beer & Pizza Evening, The Engine Shed,This SETsquared event offers an opportunity for members to relax, socialise and network with other companies within the centre, as well as hearing the latest news, including introductions from new members. If you would like to attend but have not been invited and are not a University of Bristol staff member or a member of the Bristol SETsquared Centre, please contact SETsquared through their Eventbrite page before booking your place. Sign up to the SETsquared Beer and Pizza Evening or get in touch via their Eventbrite page. |
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SWUX: Interactive Talk – ‘Are Design Frameworks Like “Material Design” a Good Idea?’, EMO Unlimited, 10 February @ 7 -8.30pmSouth West UX User Group (SWUX) is a free meet-up for UX and UX-curious people, on the second Tuesday of every month in Bristol. Join them this month for an interactive talk on UX design frameworks by SWUX members Adam Beizsley Pycroft and Indu Kaila. Check out what SWUX is all about and sign up to attend their interactive talk. |
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South West Data Social, The Watershed, 10 February @ 7pmThe South West Data social is a great opportunity to meet and network with other involved in using, learning about or discovering data technologies. Topics often include Big Data, NoSQL, NewSQL, OldSQL, document databases, linked-data and more. South West Data Meetups are free to attend, so why not sign up? |
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Develop Me: Getting Started with WordPress Workshop, The Guild Coworking Hub, 10 February @ 9am -5pmThis day-long course will show you how to get started with your first WordPress site and will cover the installation of WordPress in a hosting environment, how to go about installing plugins and starting to theme the site to look how you want it to. Best suited to those who have already got a little bit of experience in building websites using HTML and CSS but do get in touch with the organiser if you’re not sure, by following the link below. Find out about Getting Started with WordPress and purchase tickets for £149 each. |
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SETsquared Workshop: Brainstorming Techniques, The Engine Shed, 11 February @ 10am -12pmWhy not learn the top tips and tricks for effective brainstorming from business accelerator, SETsquared, at this workshop. It’s open to anyone who needs to identify new ways to solve business problems or challenges. It’s free to attend to members of SETsquared and students at local universities or £25 for external delegates. Sign up for your ticket to the SETsquared Brainstorming workshop. |
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BCS debate – ‘Personalised Health and Care 2020’, University of Bristol, 11 February @ 5.30 -8.30pmThis debate, which is run by High Tech Bristol & Bath, is aimed at engineers who are developing healthcare applications, or health care professionals using software, this workshop will help to inform the British Computer Society‘s response to the ‘Personalised health and care 2020: a framework for action‘. Get involved and ensure your voice is heard in the BCS debate by signing up now. |
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SETsquared Workshop: Marketing Messages, The Engine Shed, 11 February @ 1 -3pmThis interactive and collaborative workshop, run by the business accelerator SETsquared, builds on the brainstorming skills workshop (mentioned above) and will explain how to extract your key messages about your business proposition and articulate them. Tickets for the SETsquared Marketing Messages workshop are now available. |
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South West Founders Meetup, The Watershed, 11 February @ 7 -10pmSouth West Founders is a networking Meetup for people based in the South-West who have been, are, or want to be tech start-up founders. Get to know what South West Founders is all about and sign up to attend. |
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Develop Me: Version Management with Git and GitHub, The Guild Coworking Hub, 11 February @ 9 -5.30pmAimed at those with a little more experience in web development, this day-long workshop will cover an introduction to version control systems using Git and GitHub. Check out what you could learn from a Develop Me course in Version Management and get your tickets! |
If you have an upcoming tech or creative event we haven’t mentioned in this list, tell us about it! And check out more events on our events calendar.

Shona Wright
Shona covers all things editorial at TechSPARK. She publishes news articles, interviews and features about our fantastic tech and digital ecosystem, working with startups and scaleups to spread the word about the cool things they're up to.
She also oversees TechSPARK's social media, sharing the latest updates on everything from investment news to green tech meetups and inspirational stories.