It’s not too late to squeeze in a little more learning, a little more mingling, a little more celebrating before the end of 2016. Mix up your holiday party schedule with some productive tech and career oriented meetups. Don’t worry, there will still be plenty of food and drink and merrymaking. Check out these tech-themed holiday parties, meetups and workshops to head into 2017 on the coattails of your 2016 networking.
GOTO & Scala Days Holiday Party
Looking for a holiday party where you can meet programmers of all stripes and languages? This is the one! GOTO is partnering with the Chicago JavaScript User Group, ChicagoRuby and ChiPy for a multi-lingual party in celebration of two upcoming tech conferences. (FTW, 322 E Illinois St. December 1, 6pm. Free.)
Change Your Career Breakfast
New year, new you, right? If you’re considering a career change, heading into software development, checkout Dev Bootcamp’s Change Your Career breakfast. Meet with the coding bootcamp’s career services team, check out their space and nosh on some early morning goodies. (Dev Bootcamp, 1033 W Van Buren, 3rd floor. December 8th, 7:00am. Free)
Tech in Motion’s End of Year Celebration
Wrap up the 2016 tech networking game strong with a blowout thrown by Tech in Motion at WeWork. Keynote speakers include Michael Brook, co-founder of Synap, and Crain’s technology reporter John Pletz. (WeWork, 20 W Kinzie, 17th floor. December 8th, 6pm. Free.)
Craft Night for Coders
Are you a knitter, quilter, crochet-er or crafter of any sort, who is also interested in coding? The overlap between crafting and coding is deeper than you might think! Meet other like-minded souls at this inaugural, casual affair. (eSpark Learning, 833 W Jackson St, Suite 700. December 12th, 5:30pm. Free.)
The Truth About A/B Experimentation, with Chris Powers
This weekly series (Geekfest) is a longstanding tech tradition at Groupon’s River North headquarters. Join Chris Powers for a free discussion (and lunch!) about the pitfalls and successes of trying to experiment at scale. (Groupon, 600 W Chicago Ave, 3rd Floor. December 13th, 12:00pm. Free.)
Chicago’s Inaugural EdTech Meetup
Co-hosted by local EdTech superstar company, eSpark Learning, and local coding bootcamp Dev Bootcamp, this monthly meetup will be exploring areas of intersection between the worlds of education and technology with guest speakers, panels, and discussions. (eSpark Learning, 833 W Jackson St, Suite 700. December 14th, 6:30pm. Free.)
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