I attended the LA Tech Meetup on Tuesday, May 6th. I found out about the event on Meetup.com. I have attended tech meetups in the past , and I expected something similar. The meet-up’s original location was closed when I got there, but there was a flyer on the door with the new location, which was a block over. It was not as structured as the other tech meetups I’ve been to. They didn’t have speakers, perhaps because of the change of location at the last minute. Which I enjoyed from past tech networking events. Usually, you get to know a little bit more about the organization and the people there. Speakers give structure. I spoke to a woman named Lauren who was supposed to be a speaker, but she seemed confused as she mentioned it. She was a consultant working mainly with tech start-ups. I also met a back-end engineer named Veronica and a project manager who was Russian, but her name escapes me.
I mainly stayed at the bar and socialized with the women at the meet-up. I shared my experience, my nonprofit background, and that I have helped launch an app in the past. The interactions were mostly social, so we talked more about our hobbies, working remotely, and where we grew up. We said we would go to karaoke soon. Within an hour, the people I connected with at first left, and I left shortly after. I will likely continue attending these networking events; hopefully the next one will be more structured. I really want to get to know more about the roles and opportunities that are offered. I made friends and connections and would like to continue networking. Trello had gifted the organizers notebooks and pins, so I did leave with a notebook, which is nice. All in all, a good event.