Meet the Meetup: Head in the Cloud

The Bristol and Bath tech cluster has more meetups per head than any technology cluster in the UK – we believe it’s that connectedness, that support and that level of knowledge-sharing that drives innovation, and makes our region the best place to work in tech. So we’ve decided to highlight the awesome groups keeping us connected.

This week we’re running our questions past Head in the Cloud.

1. What’s your Meet-up?

“Head in the Cloud – South West” is a local meetup series created by ADLIB and brought to you in collaboration with our friends at Made Tech. We’re here to provide you with expert insight and thought-provoking discussions on the rapid and constantly growing World of Cloud. We launched the meetup to help raise awareness of the developments of Cloud technology. We’ll be arranging quarterly events with a range of lightning presentations, round-room debates and panel discussions from some of the South West’s leaders in Cloud technology.

2. Who’s it for?

Anyone interested in the Cloud! The cloud is everywhere and is used in most businesses nowadays with no signs of slowing down. It’s something that we need to be embracing to understand properly so this initiative is there to educate both techies and non-techies alike.

3. Is there any criteria to join?

Not really, all you need to do is make a Meetup.com account (if you’ve not already) and sign up to our group – https://www.meetup.com/cloudsouthwest/. The network is growing by the day so we’d love to welcome you!

4. What’s the format of your event?

We feature presentations from local experts in the cloud space, with the aim to introduce panel discussions and debates later down the line. We tend to begin with some networking fuelled by food & refreshments provided by our friends at Made Tech, followed by three 15-20 minute presentations from our speakers with a short break in between. We’ll then end with a round-room Q&A which leads to more networking, more food and more drink (we always buy too much food so have as much as you like!).

At the upcoming event in the series “Head in the Cloud – South West #2” on Thursday, 5th March 2020 we will hear from Alan Parry, Director of Engineering at YellowDog as well as Craig J. Bass, Tech Lead at Made Tech as well as a Cloud Specialist at ADP.

This time round ADP will be hosting the evening for us.

5. How many members do you generally have at an event?

Anywhere between 30-50 people on average, though as the network grows we’ll be looking for larger spaces so we can house up to 100+. You can never educate too many people!

6. What are some of the typical subjects you discuss?

The topics are varied as we want to ensure there is something for everyone. We’ve had people talk about serverless myths, a cloud-based data platform, and a team programming approach applied to cloud software. Some of the subjects we’re planning later this year are more focused on the business challenges of adopting cloud which will hopefully appeal to some of our less technical and hands-off audience.

 

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