Late last year, we started hosting the “Northwest Tech Meetup” near our office in Summerlin. This was an informal gathering of IT folks – directors, developers, engineers and entrepreneurs – getting together to talk tech.
We noticed something at those meetings: many of our first-time visitors were also new to tech groups in general. They appreciated what the Northwest Tech Meetup was doing, and “wished there were more things like this in Las Vegas.”
But there are great tech groups in Las Vegas, if you know where to look. They exist for almost every niche and every industry.
With that in mind, we’ve outlined four of our favorites (in no particular order) below:
1: Las Vegas Developers
A self-described “technology-agnostic group for software developers, sysadmins and devops,” Las Vegas Developers is run by Warner Onstine (MaxCDN) and Adam Englander (LaunchKey).
It’s one of many tech meetups that adopts the classroom-style format, with presentations by meetup members, followed by Q&A. Content focuses on developer topics ranging from beginner-advanced. Bring a laptop to follow along. Meets once per month.
2: SIM Las Vegas
SIM Las Vegas is an established Las Vegas institution with regular meetings, major events (SIM Golf Tournament and the Nevada IT Symposium), and community outreach in legislation, education, and workforce development. This is the elite “who’s who” of Vegas IT, with membership open to senior-level IT corporate/divisional heads, key managers, full-time college/university faculty, and partner/principal level consultants.
3: VegasJS
One of the more active tech meetups, VegasJS has been meeting twice monthly (once for more traditional JS, once for NodeBots – which focuses on “the intersection of hardware and software”). Considering the massive popularity of JS frameworks, this is a meeting local devs won’t want to miss. Run by Jimmy Jacobson (Wedgies), et. al., they meet at Work in Progress. Bring a laptop – and your other hardware, Raspberry Pi, drone, etc. for the NodeBots portion.
4: Northwest Tech Meetup
Maybe we’re biased, but we really like this Summerlin-based tech meetup, which meets the second Wednesday of every month at the Summerlin Sambalatte. It’s an informal “coffee and conversation” meeting where IT pros come to discuss projects. As far as we know, this is the only tech meetup in the Northwest (most are located Downtown at Work in Progress or further south at the Innevation Center). Look for the guy who looks like Doogie Howser.