Learning & Tech❯Tech & Coding

Prompt to Profit is a 3-day online bootcamp focused on helping founders, builders, and creators set up the systems they need to move from idea to execution. Across three focused sessions, we’ll work through the foundations of product development, workflow systems, and practical next steps for building something people can actually use, test, and grow. This bootcamp is designed for early-stage founders, hackathon builders, vibe coders, solo entrepreneurs, and anyone with an idea they want to turn into a real product or business. You’ll learn how to organize your idea, define your product, build simple systems, and create a clear path from concept to launch. Schedule Friday: 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM Saturday: 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM Sunday: 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM Location Online Bring your idea, your laptop, and your willingness to build. By the end of the weekend, you’ll have more clarity, more structure, and a stronger foundation for turning your prompt into profit.

Join for Nora Ephron’s endlessly charming You’ve Got Mail, the cozy, bookish romantic comedy that makes the dial-up internet age feel magical. Grab a bingo card curated by Violet Hex and play along as Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox fall in love one anonymous email at a time.

Book superstore magnate Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) and independent book shop owner Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) fall in love in the anonymity of the Internet—both blissfully unaware that he’s trying to put her out of business.

1998. Directed by Nora Ephron. Runtime: 1hr 59min. Rated PG.

Get ready for the 92nd Verboort Sausage and Kraut Festival, a one-day celebration in Verboort, Oregon.

Bring your appetite for the famous all-you-can-eat sausage and kraut dinner, or take home bulk sausage and kraut to create your own festival feast. Don't miss the one-of-a-kind Bazaar, filled with vintage jewelry, plants, handmade holiday décor, potholders and quilts, and homemade baked goods and jams. There's fun for the whole family, including kids' activities, family bingo, festival merchandise, and plenty of photo opportunities. Guests 21 and older can relax in the beer garden with beer, wine, cider, sausage and kraut, and college football on the big screens.

Come celebrate the community spirit of nearly 850 volunteers and discover why the Verboort Sausage and Kraut Festival is always worth marking on your calendar—the first Saturday in November.

WSU Vancouver MIS club and the Oregon Data Community host a free one-day training event for data professionals and students using the Microsoft Data Platform.

Session topics include SQL Server, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure Synapse, data analytics, visualization and more!

Coffee and Beverages will be provided, and lunch will be available for a small fee.

Conference attendance is free, but registration is required. Use the QR code below.

The Portland SIMposium is a premier event designed for IT leaders, taking place at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Portland, United States. This all-day event brings together CIOs, CISOs, and technology leaders from across the Pacific Northwest, offering a unique opportunity for collaboration, insight, and innovation. Attendees will engage in a series of mainstage panels, breakout sessions, and fireside conversations that delve into key themes reshaping technology leadership today. Topics of discussion will include AI-driven transformation, cybersecurity resilience, workforce evolution, and the human side of digital leadership. Participants will hear from executives who are at the forefront of technology change across various industries, as well as thought leaders from Oregon's vibrant innovation ecosystem. The event also features the prestigious Oregon CIO & CISO of the Year Awards, highlighting exceptional leadership and impact within the region. With the chance to connect with over 150 regional technology and business leaders, attendees can expect to gain actionable insights that will enhance their strategic governance and leadership effectiveness. The Portland SIMposium promises a day filled with knowledge-sharing, networking opportunities, and community engagement.

Imported from: http://calagator.org/events/1250482744

NODES 2026 is Neo4j's free, 24-hour global online conference, running across every time zone on November 12. The program is aimed at developers, data professionals, architects and AI engineers, with sessions on modern application development, multi-agent workflows, graph-backed retrieval and building context-rich systems that hold up in production. Talks are grouped by experience level, so there are introductory sessions for people new to graph databases alongside deeper technical material on knowledge graphs, agent orchestration and graph analytics at scale. Because the event streams continuously for a full day, Pacific-time attendees can join sessions in the morning, over lunch or in the evening, and recordings are typically published afterward. Registration is free through the Neo4j eve https://neo4j.com/event/nodes-2026-engineering-better-intelligence/

Make an augmented reality environment in an hour? Yes, it can be done.

Come to the workshop led by Brenda Grell and see.

PARTS -- the Portland Area Robotics Society -- is an Oregon non-profit formed to help people interested in robots. Monthly meetings are open to the public and everyone is welcome, from complete beginners to experienced builders. Meetings typically include show-and-tell of members robots and projects, short technical talks, build discussions, and plenty of time to ask questions about motors, sensors, microcontrollers, power and control software. The group gathers at PDX Hackerspace (CTRL-H) in Section 2, the main space you enter through the front door, at 7608 N Interstate Ave in Portland. Bring a project you are working on, or just come to see what other people in the Portland robotics community are building. Free to attend, and a friendly landing spot for students and hobbyists getting st https://events.pdxhackerspace.org/occurrences/parts-portland-area-robotics-society-2026-11-01

Portland Fabric User Group It's that magical time of year again where we have our all day FREE technical conference at a local site. This year, we are once again holding our conference at Washington State University Vancouver, up in the Salmon Creek area. As many of you know, the active leadership lives in the Vancouver area, so we've naturally migrated the event to Vancouver due to the availability of high-quality sites with excellent parking. We're in partnership with WSU Vancouver and the WSU

Portland Analytics Club Calling all developers, AI engineers, software architects, data scientists, DevOps professionals, and tech enthusiasts — **TechConnect** is your ultimate destination for career growth, project showcasing, and global peer networking in the tech ecosystem.

Hosted in a self-led, Slack-style virtual space, this **virtual tech networking event** invites you to connect, collaborate, and innovate with a diverse community of tech minds and hiring professionals from around the wo

The 92nd Annual Verboort Sausage and Sauerkraut Festival is a one day celebration of food, fun, and tradition in the small Dutch community of Verboort near Portland, held in support of Visitation Catholic School and Church. Enjoy a seated dining room experience with unlimited sausage and sauerkraut, with reduced pricing for seniors, veterans, and children, and no charge for children under 5. Drive through and walk up to-go dinners are available, and bulk sausage and sauerkraut can be purchased to take home. Throughout the day, explore a bustling marketplace with a bazaar, baked goods, exclusive merchandise, a Christmas shop, and children’s games. Additional highlights include bingo, a beer garden, a snack booth, and a plant sale.

Saving Throw Studio presents G.A.T.H.E.R., previously called Beginner Friendly App Building for Innovators: a three-hour, innovation-focused workshop for people building software without a technical background. No experience is required and the session is structured to be judgment-free -- guided, founder-friendly building rather than a lecture. This edition digs into prompting accuracy, breaking complex features down into plans a non-engineer can actually execute, and the architectural decisions behind front-end design. Bring a laptop and whatever refreshments you want; there is no dress code. Hosted by Ryan Green at North Bank Innovations inside the Vancouver Innovation Center, 18110 SE 34th St, Vancouver, Washington. Park in Lot 1, the red lot. Weekend doors are locked, so latecomers sho https://luma.com/j9rh2whz

Drag Bingo is here! Join us for an awesome evening of drag, comedy, prizes, and more. Hosted by the incredible Riley Burrows, your "Hostess with the Mostest", one of the Pacific Northwest's leading drag performers! You can find her here, you can find her there, you can find her everywhere - From Portland to Boise to Seattle to Bend and back again! Don't miss out, start making your plans now!!!

Each entry ticket provides one bingo card to play all 3 games during the event. Additional cards can be purchased for $5 each during the event, while supplies last. Food and beverages available for purchase.

The Technology Association of Oregon convenes the Agentic AI Summit, a gathering for Oregon technology professionals focused on agentic AI - systems that plan, take actions, and use tools on a persons behalf rather than simply answering prompts. The program is aimed at engineering leaders, product teams, data and platform practitioners, founders, and the operators who have to decide where autonomous agents genuinely earn their keep. Expected themes include practical deployment patterns, evaluation and guardrails, security and data governance for tool-using systems, cost and reliability tradeoffs, and lessons learned from teams already running agents in production. As with other TAO summits, expect a mix of talks, panels, and structured networking with the regional tech community in downtow https://www.techoregon.org/event/agentic-ai-summit

Topic: "The Most Human Documentation", talk by Christian Miles at WTD PDX 2026. Video followed by discussion.

Pizza will be served at 5:15pm.

Zoom Registration: https://pdx.zoom.us/meeting/register/0vPArxYIRa-VkJX47Ryn0g

LFDT Oregon Join us for a webinar with Cosmos Labs, an LFDT general member, on Designing Tokenized Deposits for a Multi-Ledger Future. Most tokenized deposit initiatives start within a single institution or consortium, but the architecture choices banks make today will determine how effectively deposits can reach new markets and power new use cases. This session examines how an interoperability protocol fits into a tokenized deposit stack, covering how deposits and data can be exchanged across l

Join us at CtrlH in the Kenton neighborhood for Home Assistant Community day! Talk about your projects\, demo what you've created\, and learn how to convert that old Amazon Echo dot into a voice assistant to use with Home Assistant. Snacks and drinks are available!

Event page: https://events.pdxhackerspace.org/occurrences/home-assistant-community-day-2026-11-07

Summary: Let's talk about the use (and abuse) of tmux! We'll cover the basics of how it works, how I use it for both good and evil, and the terrible things other people have done with it (hint: tmux is turing complete). This will be a helpful session for people who are just getting started, and (hopefully) amusing for people who have been using tmux for years. Bio: TBA

Tags: plug, linux, tmux

Imported from: http://calagator.org/events/1250482770

Discover how contemporary AI applications can serve as powerful tools for independent living, lifelong learning, and daily problem-solving. This interactive workshop demonstrates practical accessibility functions hidden inside everyday tech, such as instant text-to-speech audio conversion, natural voice-command interactions, and real-time smartphone image recognition (perfect for reading small labels or identifying objects). Moving into deeper research skills, we will outline advanced prompting methods while unpacking the distinct structural limits of large language models. Learn exactly why AI should never replace professional advisory services, and discover specific strategies for spotting online medical misinformation.

For this session, participants are asked to bring smartphones, laptops or tablets with internet access. Hands-on activities will also include more in-depth prompt writing techniques.

Taught by Adult Services Librarian April Younglove of the Lake Oswego Public Library, with one‑on‑one assistance provided by students from the Lake Youth Leadership Council.

For more information and to register for this free class, please call the Adult Community Center at (503) 635-3758. This class will take place at the Adult Community Center, located at 505 G Avenue, Lake Oswego. This event is sponsored by the Lake Oswego Adult Community Center and the Lake Oswego Public Library.

See full details at tomorrowtheater.org.

Pass the gravy and bring on the glamour. Serving up a fabulous helping of bingo, laughs, and Thanksgiving fun at the Hi-Lo Hotel. Join the one and only Poison Waters as your host, with two fabulous queens performing and plenty of sparkle to kick off your holiday season. Gather your friends, bring your chosen family, and get ready to gobble up a good time.

Share the love: Please bring a canned or shelf-stable food item to donate to Esther’s Pantry. A little generosity can make a big difference, and we’ve got plenty to be thankful for.

Come hungry for fun and ready to give back. These queens are serving more than turkey.

It’s simple. They play bingo to the most awesome movie cliches ever committed to celluloid, like “long boring scene or male ponytail," "teamed up with rookie or animal," and "white suit or tropical ending.” For maybe the first time in a theater, see the relatives and employees of A-list actors you know and love, like Sylvester Stallone, whose brother bears a remarkable resemblance to him. Compete for prizes. Yell at your fellow movie nerds over the elusive and mysterious “blank square!” Relax: it’s B-Movie Bingo.

Every first Tuesday of the month at 7:30 pm, Hollywood Theater plays B-Movie Bingo, a game that is exactly like it sounds. Or more.

Portland Fabric User Group Explore how the Port of Portland is blending machine learning and AI with traditional BI to support operational and customer experience insights. Using the PDX terminal passenger‑arrival forecasting model and the Customer Experience Scorecard as examples, we’ll trace the end‑to‑end data journey – from raw data to Databricks pipelines to Power BI. The session emphasizes practical design considerations for surfacing AI‑generated data products or advanced analytics in a w

We are an Oregon non-profit formed to help those interested in robots. Our monthly meetings are open to the public. Everyone is welcome.

More info: https://portlandrobotics.org/home.php

Event page: https://events.pdxhackerspace.org/occurrences/parts-portland-area-robotics-society-2026-11-01

Write The Docs PDX Hey, Write the Docs PDX!

Join us for our next meetup on **Thursday, November 12 @ 5:30 PM**. It's our annual supermeetup with the Tech Comms program at Portland State University. We'll meet somewhere TBD at the PSU campus, but you can also join us remotely using the Zoom link you get after you RSVP on Meetup.

Show up at 5:15 for pizza and/or come out afterwards for a drink/snack at the nearby [McMenamins Market Street Bar](https://maps.app.goo.gl/QjArSwJFKcDoqWQd6).

We'll m

Portland Code & Coffee Code & Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session: drink your beverage of choice, bring your laptop, and hang out with your peers! Have engaging conversations, or focus on work or projects. This is a great opportunity to learn from others, share your knowledge, and possibly collaborate on side projects, online courses, or even your day-to-day work.

\-\-\-\- Schedule \-\-\-\-

**Drop** **in** **at** **any time!** Everyone has commitments from time to time so **join** **us** **when** **you** **can!**

**Introductions are informal and** **unscheduled** \- practice your personal elevator pitch\, or take things slower to build your confidence\.

\-\-\-\- Venue \-\-\-\-

**Fly** **Chai** allow us to informally and freely use their space. If within your budget, we'd appreciate your help to sustain our use of the venue, by purchasing **[something tasty](https://order.toasttab.com/online/fly-chai-12520-sw-farmington-rd)**, whether Chai or otherwise.

Find us at tables with a **Code&Coffee** **sign** \- or a group of laptop\-users\!

**Wifi** and **power** **outlets** are available. The meeting area should be **accessible** \- please let us know if you have concerns\.

\-\-\-\- What to expect \-\-\-

* A smaller, less intimidating, lower pressure, cozy atmosphere. * A mix of regular and new faces, week to week. * A simpler schedule - every week, same time, same place - that you can drop into when you like. * Being closer to you than other events.

If those are to your liking, we hope you'll drop by sometime!

\-\-\-\- Getting to the venue \-\-\-\-

Fly Chai is between Watson & Washington, and Farmington & the pedestrian 1st Street commons.

The meetup page has a Google map, or use alternatives like [OpenStreetMap](https://osm.org/go/WIDNi6~gt-?m=).

Let us know if you have advice on the travel options below!

\-\- Parking \-\-

A lot outside the venue has 4 regular and 1 accessible space.

Beaverton City maps indicate:

* On-street parking within \~2-3 blocks is limited to 2 hours. * On-street parking to the South between 3rd-5th have indefinite parking * A public parking lot bounded by Hall & Washington, and 3rd & Beaverton City park (next to Beaverton City Library)

Paid parking is available at the Beaverton central district garage, near the Beaverton Central MAX stop, for $1/hour up to 8 hours.

These are all up to 5-10 minutes from the venue.

\-\- Public Transit \-\-

Beaverton Central (Red/Blue MAX), then [walk~ 8 minutes](https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=fossgis_osrm_foot&route=45.4904681%2C-122.8070937%3B45.4867379%2C-122.8052808#map=16/45.48864/-122.80644&layers=N)

Beaverton Transit Center (Red/Blue MAX, bus, WES) then [walk ~11 minutes](https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=fossgis_osrm_foot&route=45.4912376%2C-122.8009972%3B45.4867379%2C-122.8052808#map=15/45.48905/-122.80314&layers=N)

For a shorter walk to the venue, take a bus from Beaverton Transit Center (52 to Farmington/Hall, 76 to Watson/Broadway, 57 to Canyon/Watson)

\-\-\-\- Supporting the events \-\-\-\-

Purchasing items from the venue helps us maintain a healthy relationship with them.

If you attend semi-regularly then please consider signing up to be a co-host. This reduces the load on other co-hosts, and provides backup for the event if another is unable to attend. To get involved, please chat with a co-host at an event!

\-\-\- Links \-\-\-

Still uncertain?

Information on the wider Portland Code & Coffee group is available on [meetup](https://meetup.com/portland-code-coffee). The channel #portland-general is available for the group to chat on Discord.

That and the set of nationwide Discord channels may be accessed at [codeandcoffee.chat](https://codeandcoffee.chat/), or the Discord button at [codeandcoffee.org](https://codeandcoffee.org).

Further information about the central Code&Coffee organization and their other events is available on their [website](https://codeandcoffee.org/).

Support a meal for the ladies at Jean's Place! Volunteers will be asked to bring ingredients to contribute to the meal and the group will prepare dinner on-site to serve to the ladies living at Jean's Place. The volunteer leader will contact each volunteer to instruct you on what ingredients to bring. We're counting on you! It is imperative that if you sign up for this project, you intend to be there and provide the ingredients that are assigned to you. When volunteers don't show up, we're not able to make the meal. If you are unable to attend, please let your Volunteer Leader know ASAP! Please note: no volunteer will be turned away due to lack of resources. If bringing a food item is a hardship for you, please alert the project leader. Everyone will then help facilitate a game of bingo, which will include prizes for the winners! Join us for this unique experience! Volunteers are asked to refrain from wearing strong fragrances, such as perfume and cologne, during their volunteer shift. A part of Transition Projects, Jean's Place is a transitional housing program for adult, single homeless women. Project Requirements: Volunteers must be 18 years of age or older to attend this project. If you plan to bring guests you MUST reserve slots for them. The best way to do this is to create a Volunteer Team, then sign up your team for this project. IMPORTANT NOTE: You are responsible for ensuring that everyone signed up through your team attends - only sign up team members who have confirmed their availability. Teams that repeatedly sign up, but do not show up or show up with fewer volunteers than they signed up, may be removed. To add or remove team members from a project, click on "My Account" and then "My Teams," above. Click "Sign Up" below to reserve your spot! Need help signing up? Call 503-200-3364 or email [email protected].

Working with data that's too large, too slow, or too messy for regular CSVs? Join us for an introduction to the {arrow} package in R. We'll explore how Arrow and Parquet files can make large datasets faster to store, read, and analyze, all while using the familiar dplyr workflows you already know and love. Using Portland's Biketown data, we'll convert, query, and visualize millions of rides without breaking a sweat (or our laptops). Bring your laptop if you want to follow along. No need to RSVP via Meetup, but we might share info ahead of time in the event comments!

Tags: data, r, women in tech

Imported from: http://calagator.org/events/1250482764

That PLUG Clinic you like is coming back into style! The PLUG Clinic returns again this month on November 15, from 1pm-5pm. We are back at the Albina Branch Library this month. If you need help with your Linux computer, or want to offer help, you are welcome! Volunteer helpers are as desirable as helpees. Helping is fun and rewarding. If you've ever helped out at a PLUG Clinic before, come checkout the space! Thanks to the taxpayers of Multnomah County for the beautiful new building!

Tags: Linux Help, plug, clinic

Imported from: http://calagator.org/events/1250482768

Join us for Bingo Night at Club Impact, a fun and social evening for adults in the Intellectual and Developmental Disability (I/DD) community to connect, play bingo, and enjoy time with friends.

FIRST COVENANT CHURCH
4433 E Burnside St, Portland, OR 97215

👥 Who: Adults in the I/DD community, along with families and support staff
💵 Cost: $5.00 entry for participants — caregivers attend free
🍪 Food: Snacks will be available

🎲 Bingo cards are provided (no markers needed). Enjoy chances to win prizes in a relaxed, welcoming Club Impact environment.

Walk in event – No registration required

Tech talent pool This is a fun networking event to play pool and talk tech. We will have free tables to play on and Happy Hour runs until 6pm. Everyone is welcome, you do not have to be great at pool to attend!

Bingo & Wine - Nov 8

📅 Date: Sunday, Nov 8, 2026
⏰ Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Cost: $5 per person (21+ event only)
Members: Complimentary, Up to 8 tickets)
Ticket Sales Start: Nov 4, 2026 at 11am

Seating & Reservations:

Reservations are limited to 8 people per table.
If you are the person making the entire groups reservation, you will all sit together.
If you and your friends are all booking separately, please list in the "Add a gift message or special instructions" area.

Food & Beverage Policy:

🚚 Food Truck: Sabor Autentico

🚫 No outside drinks or water bottles allowed.

🍽 You MAY bring your own food

🐾 No pets allowed.

🎟 Secure your spot early—this event fills up fast!

The Tech Academy **How can developers use AI effectively without losing sight of the fundamentals?**

AI is changing how software is built and how developers approach everyday problems. For students and early-career engineers, keeping up with new tools and practices can feel overwhelming. Understanding how the industry has evolved and learning to make thoughtful decisions about AI can help you adapt and build skills that last.

Our guest speaker, **Bethany Janos**, is a senior software engineer

Better Futures Club is a weekly event (alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays) focused on imagining and making better futures. Imagine an artist community, a think tank, and a research center in the same building. People in all of those fields working alongside each other imagining and creating different futures together. Cross pollination and inspiration. Liberal Arts and STEM and R&D. Photographers, physicists, authors, astronomers, musicians, makers, mathematicians, designers, developers, fashionistas, climatologists and all manner of imaginative optimists. All Better Futures Club events are covered by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct (https://www.contributor-covenant.org)

Tags: ruby, STEM, liberal arts, community, hacking, AI

Imported from: http://calagator.org/events/1250482760

PDX Women Coders Join PDX Women Coders for a back-end study session, where we read and discuss *[Designing Data-Intensive Applications (2nd edition)](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-data-intensive-applications/9781098119058/)* by Martin Kleppmann. We plan to go over one chapter (or so) each session, and we will be meeting every two weeks for 7-8 months to finish the book. Each session, we'll go over that we learned in that chapter, and explore key concepts in distributed systems,

Veterans in Technology First Thursday of the month at Tap Union Freehouse, 1300 Washington St #200 Vancouver, WA.

Join NWVIT for our meeting in Vancouver, WA. Join us at this informal professional networking event. No presentation/agenda for this meeting. Bring your spouse! Connect with other veterans in the Vancouver, WA area.

Trivia nights on Wednesday and Thursday. Hosts trivia nights, bingo nights, and music events. All-ages venue with pizzeria offering vegan and gluten-free options. Atlantis Lounge is adjoining cozy bar with nautical drink menu.

Bingo with Portland Lions Club, every Monday 19:00-21:00

Join Adult Services Librarian April Younglove from the Lake Oswego Public Library for a hands-on, four-part series designed to demystify artificial intelligence. Learn how to navigate the digital world, protect your privacy, and use AI tools with confidence and skepticism. Sessions include clear, live demonstrations, interactive discussions, and personalized tech support. Free for all participants.

• Location: Lake Oswego Adult Community Center
• Cost: Free for both residents and non-residents
• Requirements: Please bring a smartphone, laptop, or tablet with internet access for the hands-on practice portions.

Foundations for Everyday Use

Kick off the series by stripping away the tech jargon and discovering how artificial intelligence can simplify your day-to-day life. This foundational session introduces core AI concepts and terminology—including AI summarizers, generative chatbots, and natural prompting—in clear, approachable language. Through live demonstrations of Claude AI, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT, you will learn how to safely use these tools to brainstorm recipes, plan custom travel itineraries, and organize daily tasks. We will introduce the essential "Ask–Tweak–Verify" (ATV) framework alongside critical privacy guidelines to ensure you protect your personal data right from the start.

One-on-one lab assistance is proudly provided by student volunteers from the Lake Youth Leadership Council to help you configure settings on your personal devices.

Date / Time: Tuesday, September 15 | 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Class Number: 34825

Hands-On Skills and Sandbox Practice

Build directly upon your foundational knowledge with a supportive, highly interactive sandbox session dedicated to mastering digital assistants. In Part 2, participants shift from watching demonstrations to writing and refining their own prompts. Under patient guidance, you will practice conversational techniques, discover how subtle shifts in word choices yield dramatically improved answers, and learn how to implement standard internet safety boundaries. A major focus of this workshop will be learning how to cross-reference and fact-check chatbot output to ensure your digital interactions remain secure, accurate, and productive.

Personalized, one-on-one tech support will be provided throughout the hands-on practice intervals by members of the Lake Youth Leadership Council.

Date / Time: Tuesday, October 20 | 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Class Number: 34826

Helping Seniors Navigate Daily Life With Confidence

Discover how contemporary AI applications can serve as powerful tools for independent living, lifelong learning, and daily problem-solving. This interactive workshop demonstrates practical accessibility functions hidden inside everyday tech, such as instant text-to-speech audio conversion, natural voice-command interactions, and real-time smartphone image recognition (perfect for reading small labels or identifying objects). Moving into deeper research skills, we will outline advanced prompting methods while unpacking the distinct structural limits of large language models. Learn exactly why AI should never replace professional advisory services, and discover specific strategies for spotting online medical misinformation.

Personalized, one-on-one tech support will be provided throughout the hands-on practice intervals by members of the Lake Youth Leadership Council.

Date / Time: Tuesday, November 17 | 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Class Number: 34827

Becoming a Confident, Critical AI User

The final installation equips you with an essential digital defense toolkit to evaluate whether online content is authentic, accurate, and trustworthy. We will break down common system errors, reveal how "hallucinations" occur, and introduce quick, library-approved methods for verifying data across independent sources. Crucially, this session helps participants recognize how malicious actors deploy technology for modern fraudulent schemes—including cloning voices for identity scams, fabricating hyper-realistic deepfakes, and pushing complex cryptocurrency traps. Leave with the confidence and critical awareness needed to enjoy modern digital conveniences safely and securely.

Personalized, one-on-one tech support will be provided throughout the hands-on practice intervals by members of the Lake Youth Leadership Council.

Date / Time: Tuesday, December 15 | 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Class Number: 34828

Missed a previous session? Access archived video recordings, interactive presentation slides, and educational handouts from our past technology literacy classes below:

Explore the sophisticated tools and methodologies professional librarians utilize to identify computer-generated texts, altered documents, and artificial imagery. This session provides actionable, real-world clues to help you differentiate between genuine human creations and artificial content in your daily newsfeeds and correspondence.

This class was originally presented at the Lake Oswego Public Library.

• Watch the Presentation Video on YouTube
• View Interactive Presentation Slides
• Download Class Instructional Handout

Navigate the rapidly-evolving digital landscape with clarity and balance. This session pulls back the curtain on automated "content farms," breaking down how social media algorithms, financial pay-per-click incentives, and strategic influence campaigns purposefully accelerate the distribution of false narratives. Learn to evaluate source motivations and protect your digital footprint from predatory content design.

This class was originally presented at the Lake Oswego Adult Community Center.

• Watch the Presentation Video on YouTube
• View Interactive Presentation Slides
• Download Class Instructional Handout

For questions or more information regarding our technology programs, please contact Adult Services Librarian April Younglove at [email protected].

Strategic Sponsors - Oregon State University and Beacon Lake Oswego

LO TECH FORUM meets quarterly to hear from a speaker on the cutting edge of technological progress and presents a Lake Oswego version of "Shark Tank."

Watch this space as details emerge.

Want to join the mailing list for this group? Email [email protected].

If your Company would like to Sponsor an LO Tech Connect or Forum event, please click here for more information.

Get ready to rock around the Christmas tree with Holiday Music Bingo at The Mission Theater! We're putting a festive twist on classic bingo, swapping numbers for your favorite holiday hits! Listen (and sing) to holiday songs, mark your cards, and get ready to shout BINGO! Bring your friends, family, and holiday spirit for a fun-filled and festive celebration. Our 1st-3rd place winners will take home a McMenamins gift card, with plenty of other opportunities to win some swag. This all-ages event is part of the west end holiday celebrations, a festive weekend of fun at the Mission Theater and The Crystal Ballroom.

Help us help Portland!
Give back this holiday season by bringing a pack of socks (any size) with you and get an extra bingo card! Snowcap Community Services will receive all sock donations you bring for this holiday season.

Learn more about Snowcap Community Services at www.snowcap.org

Poison Waters is not just a personality, she is an experience – a bawdy, smart, laugh-so-hard-you'll-cry experience, and she'll emcee you through a night of bingo more lively than you ever thought bingo could be. Play to win prizes like overnight stays at McMenamins historic hotels – and more.

LFDT Oregon Panurus ([https://github.com/LFDT-Panurus](https://github.com/LFDT-Panurus)) is an open-source framework for building token-based applications that preserve transactional privacy while remaining fully auditable and interoperable across ledgers. In this talk, we'll walk through how Panurus's driver-based architecture lets developers plug in different token technologies — from Fabtoken to zero-knowledge schemes — behind a common transaction lifecycle (Request → Assemble → Sign → Commit

People doing strange things with electricity! Dorkbot PDX is an informal show-and-tell for electronic artists, circuit designers, microcontroller programmers, retro computing enthusiasts, video game designers, digital archaeologists and modular synth gearheads. Bring something you have built and talk about it, or just come along to see what other people in the Portland hardware and electronic art community are up to. Presentations are short and casual, and range from finished installations to half-working prototypes and instructive failures. The meetup usually draws 20 to 50 people, is free, and is very welcoming to newcomers -- no project required. Hosted at PDX Hackerspace (CTRL-H), 7608 N Interstate Ave, Portland, in Section 2, the main space you enter through the front door, from 6:30 https://events.pdxhackerspace.org/occurrences/dorkbot-2026-11-09

AI agents dominate current industry discussion, yet clear explanations of what they are, why they fail, and what roles they are creating remain scarce. This session offers a foundational introduction for students and early-career technologists. We’ll examine what distinguishes an agent from a conventional chatbot — tools, memory, and planning loops — and trace an agent through the completion of a realistic task. We then turn to the less-demonstrated half of the problem: the data an agent requires to be useful, and the boundaries it requires to be safe.

ARTHACK is a monthly evening of discussion for computer enthusiasts and artists, hosted at ADX in Southeast Portland. The group talks about and shares work that explores the intersection of code, art, hardware, and society -- generative work, creative coding, physical computing, hardware hacking, net art, and the social questions that come with all of it. Bring a laptop and you can share something on the open projector: works in progress, experiments, failures, and half-finished ideas are all welcome alongside finished pieces. No experience with either art or code is required, and there is no formal program -- it is an informal, conversation-driven night for people who like making things with computers. Free and open to all. ADX is at 417 SE 11th Avenue, Portland. https://artdesignxchange.com/events/arthack-mtd89-53dw5

Hack Lunch is the monthly meeting of the PDX Hacker Foundation, whose mission is empowering the Portland hacker community through grants, education and asymmetric impact. The foundation gathers over lunch to review grant requests, plan education and outreach programs, and discuss how best to support maker, hacker and technology projects around Portland. Anyone curious about the foundation work, interested in applying for a grant, or looking for a way to get involved in supporting the local hacker community is welcome to sit in and listen. Held at PDX Hackerspace (CTRL-H), 7608 N Interstate Ave, Portland, in Section 2 -- the main space you enter through the front door -- from noon to 2:00 PM Pacific on second Wednesdays. https://events.pdxhackerspace.org/occurrences/hack-lunch-2026-11-11

Come hack the hackerspace or visit our open house! Open to the public\; let us know if you'd like a tour or bring your own project to hack on! This is a great time to learn about the space\, apply for membership\, meet people at the space\, or for new members to receive orientation.

Work Party+Open House is every Saturday *except* the last Saturday of each month\, which is a closed work party for members only to focus on repairing and improving the space.

Event page: https://events.pdxhackerspace.org/occurrences/work-party-open-house-2026-11-07