Mostly-free Tech Events + More

Happy August! It’s been a while. In early July, I was heads-down at AI Engineer World’s Fair and then went straight to Berlin and Boston for work. I’m now writing to you from Maui (wedding time!) before heading to Puerto Vallarta for a friend’s bachelorette party.

Here are some tech events in SF and NYC you should go to this month.

Contest for Ray Summit ticket (priority given to paid subscribers)

Ray Summit is back August 24-26th! I’m giving away 1 ticket as well as

50% off summit w/ code RS26SUMMITMKTG50
50% off summit + training w/ code RS26TRAININGMKTG50

To win the free ticket, comment a SF or Bay Area bar or venue you recommend for events by Sunday August 9!

Read on for more SF and NYC events!

🌁🌉

Tue Aug 4

5p-7p: AI After Hours
5:30p-8:30p: Art Gallery for Agents (Portal x3)
6p-8p: Built by Agents: How Leading YC Companies are Building AI in Production
6:30p-9p: AI & Mobile meet-up by Software Mansion
6:45p-8:45p: Claude Code Demos: Building the State of the Art
7p-10p: AI and ML Professionals, Investors and Start-Ups Networking

Wed Aug 5

8a-9a: Agents & Bagels: Weekly breakfast meet up for agent builders
3p-5p: AI Engineers: Aug
5:30p-7p: Loop Engineering Meetup
5:30p-7:30p: localhost · vol 1 · for CTOs

Thu Aug 6

8:00a-9:30a: Agent Builders Breakfast - Founders & Builders
5:30p-8p: ModelOps Night: Evals, Routing & Benchmarks
5:30p-8:30p: DEMO NIGHT with The AI Collective
6p-9p: Bridging the Agentic Era: The Future of Commerce Cocktail Hour
6p-9p: Agent Infra Night
6p-11p: Open-Source Evening with MiniMax, Moonshot, Baseten, Modal & Factory

Sun Aug 9

1p-2p: Founders - AI Power Walk
10a-8p: Hack with VoiceOS | $5k in OpenAI Credits

Mon Aug 10

6:45p-9p: Builders Night in Hayes Valley

Wed Aug 12

5:00p-10:00p: WorkOS Agent Night
9:30a-12:30p: Data Engineering Meetup with ClickHouse

Thu Aug 13

9a-4p: MongoDB.local Build Fest
6p-8p: Ditch the Deck - AI Show, Not Tell

Tue Aug 18

Wed Aug 19

5p-8p: AI Happy Hour
5:30p-7:30p: Agents in Production: DevTools demo night

Thu Aug 20

3p-8:30p: AI Infrastructure: Talks + AI Agent Workshops
12p-3p: Mistral Catfe Coworking
6p-8p: Agents are changing the web with Parag Agrawal (founder, Parallel)
5:p-9p: Rooftop Tech Mixer & Demo Night (I’m speaking here so please come and say hi lol)
7p-10p: The New Builders: Megaprojects, Startups, and the World We’re Building

Mon Aug 24

8a-6p: Ray Summit 2026 (see contest above)
6:30p-9p: Builders Night

Tues Aug 25

5:30p-8p: AI-Pilled Teams: Multi-Player Demos

Thurs Aug 27

LangSmith Roadshow: Building Agents with Agents - Silicon Valley (South Bay)

🗽NYC

Mon Aug 3

1p-4p: Mistral Catfe Coworking

Tue Aug 4

6:30p-8:30p: Conversations About AI: Power, Access, and Representation
6:00p-8:30p: Brand Design Futures with Notion + Ramp
5:30p-8:00p: Supabase x Datadog: Meetup
6:30p-8:30p: Sovereign AI: A Fight for the Future of Freedom

Thu Aug 6

7p-11p: AI Engineers: Poker & Game Night
6:30p-8:30p: Yoga & AI

Sun Aug 9

2p-4p: Context Engineering Guild: August Edition

Wed Aug 12

9a-6p: Cafe Cursor City

Thurs Aug 13

6p-8:30p: LangChain NY Meetup: LLM Wikis and Managing Agent Context

Fri Aug 14

5:30p-7p: Agentic Security - Inaugural Meetup

Tue Aug 18

5p-8p: AI Demo Night

Thurs Aug 20

6p-9p: WTD NYC and GitBook - State of Docs Panel

Mon Aug 24

6p-8p: AI and What Makes Us Human, a Fireside Chat with Camille Carlton + Responsible Tech Mixer

Wed Aug 26

6:30p-10:30p: Hard Negatives: AI Engineers Debate & Game Night

What I’m Reading

Happy Summer! Life is short! Enjoy the weather!

<3,

Lizzie

"'cause a little bit of summer is what the whole year is about" - john mayer

Lizzie Siegle — Sun, 31 May 2026 21:19:12 GMT

Get 75% off a ticket to Render’s localhost conference on June 18 at the St. Regis w/ promo code LIZZIEPIKA.

Get a $100 ticket to Arize AI’s Observe conference on June 4! (Normally $500) w/ promo code DATNGOVIP100.
Want a free ticket to either of these? Become a paid subscriber to this Substack and DM me by June 4th!

🌁🌉Events

Mon June 1

"You can outsource your thinking, but you cannot outsource your understanding"

Lizzie Siegle — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 22:02:37 GMT

I’m working on this newsletter early, primarily because I’m not really working right now. It’s my penultimate last day at DigitalOcean. I still need to send my goodbye email—I was so fortunate to work with some amazing coworkers and I learned so much from them.

I’m about to bike to the Cal Academy of Sciences to go to the aquarium, then go to an Illeniu…

“Stop being perfect, because obsessing over being perfect stops you from growing.” - Brad Pitt

Lizzie Siegle — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 05:39:42 GMT

Apologies for the delayed newsletter because I was on a cruise from Athens to Istanbul last week! Would recommend (despite enhanced security and precautions in Turkey due to the Iran)—loved the history.

Free and Discounted Conference Tickets 🎉

"In March I'll be rested, caught up and human" - Sylvia Plath

Lizzie Siegle — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 04:57:39 GMT

Congrats to Cornelia Davis (a lovely paid subscriber) for winning the free Daytona Compute conference ticket last month! (Reminder—priority for free tickets and giveaways are given to paid subs!)

I’m excited to be sponsoring it with DO (mainly because I can’t wait to go back to Chase Center, home of the Golden State Valkyries.)

Read on for more tech event…

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be." - Robert Browning

Lizzie Siegle — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 01:33:02 GMT

I turn 30 this month! Honestly, it feels weird. Some days, I feel older than 30. The pandemic has really messed with my sense of time. I told a few people and they thought I was older (I credit having older parents with that, something about having parents who could be your grandparents makes you something of an old soul.)

To me, 30 is how I get more tir…

January 2026: Mostly Free Coastal Tech Events

Lizzie Siegle — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 06:47:33 GMT

This is going to be a more analog year for me! I’m saying “no” more in order to prioritize what’s important. I’m cooking more, really limiting screen time and scrolling, and will continue reading a lot of books (particularly from the library) and knitting!

2026 has barely started, and already I’ve read some very good books—I must recommend

"My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?" - Bob Hope

Lizzie Siegle — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 07:45:45 GMT

This is delayed!

I was in London for work (I also saw Paddington the Musical which was wonderful of course), was home for 2 nights, and then jetted off to Hawaii with my partner’s family for 2 weeks before getting back and getting straight back to work last night! There’s so much to be done before the holidays and while it was fun to snorkel and eat spam…

"If we're kind and polite, the world will be right"- Paddington

Lizzie Siegle — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 08:07:36 GMT

I just watched the Paddington movies for the first time and am obsessed. I laughed, I cried, and I smiled. Do watch them if you haven’t already!

Read on for more events, some GitHub repos, and what I’m reading (this time feat. more commentary!)

"Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go".

Lizzie Siegle — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:12:27 GMT

I can’t believe it’s Fall! I’m currently in the Happiest Place on Earth (Disneyland) and it is over 80 degrees so it doesn’t feel like Fall. Yet change is in the air—I’m starting a new gig next week! (Same gig, new company. Hello, DigitalOcean🌊!)

If you see me in-person, I will tell you more about why I’m headed over there (they’re doing some cool stuff…

Some events for next week in SF

Lizzie Siegle — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 21:51:18 GMT

Dearest paid subscribers,

In SF and want some dinner and AI conversation on Thurs September 18?

Check out NRF and Twill Present The Horizon Forum: A Global Dinner Forum on AI for Investors, Founders, and Execs. Respond for a free ticket—I have 2 for you! Know someone who may be interested? 25% off the $40 ticket w/ code LIZZIESGUEST

"The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them" - Unknown

Lizzie Siegle — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 04:58:24 GMT

Apologies for the late newsletter—work and life’s been busy! Lots of being out, tennis, workout classes, and some local travels.

There are so many SF events this month, it’s wild…and some good NYC ones too, of course.

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do" - Steve Jobs

Lizzie Siegle — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:04:23 GMT

Happy August! 🐣

CONTEST FOR A CONFERENCE IN EARLY OCTOBER: Unlock a FREE ticket to the GraphQL event of the year including hands-on MCP workshops, real-world AI talks from Block, Wiz and Intuit, and 1:1 …

"A rising tide lifts all boats"

Lizzie Siegle — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 06:34:31 GMT

Happy July! 🐣

When I was an intern, I went to a few NYC tech meetups with my then-director. He would “Irish goodbye” and I remember thinking, “I can’t believe he left without saying goodbye.” For the past few years, however, I have Irish goodbyed. I love home! As am ambivert, I enjoy seeing people and then being alone. However, I’ve begun sticking aroun…

Paid Subscribers event share

Lizzie Siegle — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 04:18:49 GMT

Go to this elevated, bougier than usual party—Browserbase Bash!

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier." - Mother Teresa

Lizzie Siegle — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 00:57:22 GMT

Happy June! 🐣

Read on for tech events in the Bay Area (mainly SF) and some in NYC (IK a few subscribers there!), GitHub repos, and articles I find interesting.

🌁🌉Events

Wed June 4

6p-9:30p: 🧸 Build-an-Ag…

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'" - Robin Williams

Lizzie Siegle — Sun, 04 May 2025 06:18:48 GMT

Happy May! 🐣

This is delayed because life.

Read on for tech events in the Bay Area (mainly SF) and some in NYC (IK a few subscribers there!), GitHub repos, and articles I find interesting.

🌁🌉Events

Sun M…

"Opportunities don't happen, you create them"

Lizzie Siegle — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 08:16:32 GMT

Happy April! 🐣

This is delayed as I was in DisneyWorld (and a conference.) (And it’s Cloudflare Developer Week.) Make time for your family, say “yes”, and you only live once!

Read on for tech events in th…

“In March, winter is holding back and spring is pulling forward. Something holds and something pulls inside of us too.” – Jean Hersey

Lizzie Siegle — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 07:03:13 GMT

Happy March! 🌸🌼

The weather is getting better, my left knee has improved, I’m running and biking and having walk-and-talks…life is looking up again! Not that it was ever looking down, but longer days and warmer weather does help.

Mostly-free Tech Events + More

"I used to love September, but now it just rhymes with remember."

Thu Sept 3

Fri Sept 4

Tues Sept 8

Wed Sept 9

Thurs Sept 10

Sat Sept 12

Mon Sept 14

Tues Sept 15

Wed Sept 16

Thurs Sept 17

Thurs Sept 22

🗽NYC

Tues Sept 1

Wed Sept 2

Thu Sep 3

Mon Sep 7

Wed Sep 9

Thu Sep 10

Sat Sep 12

Tue Sep 15

Thu Sep 17

Fri Sep 18

Wed Sep 30

"To live for the hope of it all // Cancel plans just in case you'd call" - Taylor Swift

Tue Aug 4

Wed Aug 5

Thu Aug 6

Sun Aug 9

Mon Aug 10

Wed Aug 12

Thu Aug 13

Tue Aug 18

Wed Aug 19

Thu Aug 20

Mon Aug 24

Tues Aug 25

Thurs Aug 27

Mon Aug 3

Tue Aug 4

Thu Aug 6

Sun Aug 9

Wed Aug 12

Thurs Aug 13

Fri Aug 14

Tue Aug 18

Thurs Aug 20

Mon Aug 24

Wed Aug 26

What I’m Reading

"'cause a little bit of summer is what the whole year is about" - john mayer

🌁🌉Events

"You can outsource your thinking, but you cannot outsource your understanding"

“Stop being perfect, because obsessing over being perfect stops you from growing.” - Brad Pitt

"In March I'll be rested, caught up and human" - Sylvia Plath

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be." - Robert Browning

January 2026: Mostly Free Coastal Tech Events

"My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?" - Bob Hope

"If we're kind and polite, the world will be right"- Paddington

"Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go".

Some events for next week in SF

"The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them" - Unknown

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do" - Steve Jobs

"A rising tide lifts all boats"

Paid Subscribers event share

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier." - Mother Teresa

🌁🌉Events

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'" - Robin Williams

🌁🌉Events

"Opportunities don't happen, you create them"

“In March, winter is holding back and spring is pulling forward. Something holds and something pulls inside of us too.” – Jean Hersey