Smart Resources

Scrum RVA
2019-11-19 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Capital One Bank, 10700 Capital One Way, Glen Allen
We’ll have an evening filled with short Lightning Talks (usually 5 mins or so) on a wide range of topics around leveraging the Scrum Framework within our teams and organizations. Don’t miss the fun! 🙂
Interested in presenting a Lightning Talk for this gathering? Please register your talk here: https://forms.gle/omBNhpzMi4C5fdG49 and we’ll send out the final agenda a few days prior to the gathering.
RESOURCES:
What is a Lightning Talk? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_talk
How to write a Lightning Talk? http://www.heidiwaterhouse.com/2016/06/19/how-to-write-a-lightning-talk/
How to give a Lightning Talk? https://vimeo.com/57965823

Azure Richmond
2019-12-05 17:30 - 20:30 | Markel Plaza, 4600 Cox Rd, Glen Allen, VA, 23060, United States
IoT Hack Night 2019
Come a bit earlier than usual if you can and bring your Raspberry Pi or similar hack-ready devices and an assortment of actuators and sensors. We’ll have half a dozen work areas set up with monitors, keyboards, WiFi, wired ethernet, etc. to encourage playful learning. If you don’t have any of the gear or experience, this will be a great way to learn about what’s possible with the Internet of Things (IoT).
If you’re an IoT pro, be ready to help your peers learn about edge-computing technologies. We’ll have some 10-minute-long lightning talks throughout the evening to describe basic electronic concepts and micro-platform programming. Bring your friends and we’ll enjoy some good food, fun, learning, and professional networking.
If you want to hack with us throughout the evening, we recommend that you bring a WiFi-ready laptop. Don’t forget the power supply. If you want to connect your creations to the Internet (of Things), a subscription to Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, or Google Cloud Platform is recommended but not required.

PyRVA (Python User Group - Richmond, VA)
2019-12-11 18:30 - 20:30 | VA
Join us for our annual social meeting!
Speaker session is cancelled for social night.
Feel free to submit your favorite locations for considerations. More details to come regarding the location.
Schedule:
Networking 6:30 PM
Please contact an organizer if you’re interested in giving a talk.
Watch for upcoming project night meetings.

Richmond SQL Server Users Group
2019-12-12 18:30 - 20:30 | Markel Plaza Building 1, 4600 Cox Rd, Glen Allen, VA, 23060, United States
In this session, we will look at the new Query Store feature in SQL Server 2016, 2017, and 2019. Query Store tracks changes in execution plans, allowing you to easily view performance differences and revert to older plans with a few clicks of the mouse in 2016. Then in 2017, Microsoft added wait stats per query plan and Automatic Plan Correction capabilities. Allowing DBAs more tools to troubleshoot fires with and a way to automatically resolve issues. In this session, we will walk through the features of the Query Store, so you can understand how to use them in SQL Server 2016, 2017, and 2019

Richmond AWS User Group
2020-01-06 18:00 - 19:30 | 3431 W Leigh St, 3431 W Leigh St, Richmond, VA
Come to Ippon USA’s office in Richmond, VA to catch up on everything you missed from AWS re:Invent 2019, delivered straight from AWS architects & evangelists!
Schedule:
6-6:30 – Ford gives updates on non-AI/ML stuff
6:30-8 – Chris gives AI/ML updates & deep-dive, plus a DeepRacer workshop!

RVA.js
2020-01-07 18:00 - 20:00 | unboxed Training & Technology, 2201 W Broad St suite 202, Richmond, VA, 23220, United States
Presentation Abstract
Angular Custom Elements are a recent addition to the Angular framework that allows you to create exportable components.
Whenever we create an Angular Element, we create a new custom HTML element that can be used on any webpage, even if that webpage does not use Angular at all. That way, you can have Angular components displayed on a page that uses React, Vue, Angular JS, or even some HTML generated with JSP, PHP, ASP, etc.
Using Elements can be a great way to get started with Angular without having to migrate an entire application to Angular.
There are 5 Main Reasons to use Angular Elements
1. Embedding Angular Components Into Non-Angular Applications
2. Embedding Angular Components Into Content Sites
3. Implementing Dynamic Angular Applications (“Dashboard”/CMS)
4. Upgrading from AngularJS to Angular
5. Independent Deployment

PyRVA (Python User Group - Richmond, VA)
2020-01-08 18:30 - 21:30 | 4521 Highwoods Parkway, 4521 Highwoods Pkwy, Glen Allen, VA
We are going to be demonstrating 1) how to setup a Continuous Integration pipeline for a Python application and 2) how to implement Continuous Deployment using Python/Boto3 on AWS.
Viji Natarajan from Women Who Code will present!

HackRVA-Meetup
2020-01-16 19:00 - 21:00 | 1600 E. Roseneath Rd, 1600 E. Roseneath Rd, Richmond, VA, 23230, United States
Come show off a project, socialize, or just hang out. Thinking about becoming a member, come on in. All are welcome!
Guests, please park on the street, permits are required to park in our parking lot.
Hack.RVA is a member-run non-profit makerspace located in the Scott’s Addition neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. We’re essentially a space filled with tools, computers, and people who like to build, invent, tinker, learn new skills and expand their minds. In our space you’ll find people into electronics, robots, wood working, embedded software, metal working, music, art, video, photography, 3D printing, sewing, textiles, virtual reality, gaming, lasers and much more.

Richmond AWS User Group
2020-02-12 17:30 - 19:30 | 3431 W Leigh St, 3431 W Leigh St, Richmond, VA
Unus multorum: The Anatomy of a Distributed System
ABOUT BRIAN:
Brian is perhaps the most talented cloud architect I’ve ever encountered, and whenever he talks I listen. You don’t want to miss this session!
ABOUT THE TOPIC:
Lambda@Edge, IoT Greengrass, and EventBridge are some of the newest Amazon Web Services products that distribute compute resources away from a centralized system. This trend is nothing new, but rather a continuation of the paradigm shift brought on by the cloud and mobile devices. Let’s take a deeply technical dive into a multi-region distributed system and look at its context in the evolution of computing from the terminal to the cloud. Along the way, we’ll consider the possibly heretical take that the cloud paradigm shift is just beginning and that what is holding us back may be ourselves!

PyRVA (Python User Group - Richmond, VA)
2020-02-12 18:30 - 20:00 | 4521 Highwoods Parkway, 4521 Highwoods Pkwy, Glen Allen, VA
Sam Portillo, one of our organizers, will be giving a talk on web scraping in Python.
Sam is a Data Engineer on an event aggregation project that acquires all data via web scraping in Python. The talk will be focused primarily the Python package BeautifulSoup, but will acknowledge other scraping methods as well.
Sam will provide examples and guidance for real world applications for web scraping projects that any Python programmer can do.
Computers are not required to follow along with this lecture, all of the slides and code will be available on GitHub after the presentation
Schedule:
6:30 Doors Open
6:50 Announcements
7:00 Sam’s talk
7:45 Closing remarks and networking

Women Who Code Richmond
2020-02-18 18:00 - 20:00 | Mobulex, 1635 W. Broad St, Richmond, VA, 23220, United States
Front End Study Night is a collaborative and open environment for us to hone our front-end web dev skills together through dialogue and peer programming. There is no formal project, but do come prepared to code. This time is for you to work on personal projects, homework, or the tutorials you’ve been meaning to get through!
We welcome devs of all levels and encourage those with more experience to help out those that are just starting. Please bring your laptop as extra computers will not be available at the event. Each study group will have the following agenda:
• 6:00pm – Welcome and Setup
• 6:15 – 6:30pm – Introductions
• 6:30 – 7:30pm – Code!
• 7:30 – 7:45pm – Wrap Up
A huge thanks to our sponsor, Mobelux, for providing dinner and event space!
Parking Details:
Please feel free to park in the numbered spots that wrap around the sides and the back of the building (there are about 20 total). If none are available, Lowe’s is an option as well.
Make sure you come in the front door as the side doors lock automatically.

ScrumRVA
2020-02-25 18:00 - 20:00 | VA
AGENDA:
6pm: Pizza & Networking
6:30pm: ScrumRVA World Cafe
8pm: Done/Break-down/Networking
8:30pm: Done, Done
Unifying question: What have been the successes and challenges implementing Agile/Scrum projects at your organization. Considering those successes and challenges, what would you indicate as best practices when leveraging Agile/Scrum.
World Cafe is an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue around questions that matter in service to real work. Cafés in different contexts have been named in many ways to meet specific goals, for example Creative Cafés, Strategy Cafés, Leadership Cafés, and Community Cafés. World Café conversations are based on the principles and format developed by the World Café, a global movement to support conversations that matter in corporate, government, and community settings around the world.

RVA Data Engineering
2020-02-26 17:30 - 19:30 | VA
In this talk, Jason Vondersmith will talk about why security is a special concern for his team. As well as discussing best practices for limiting cloud access to your most sensitive data.
Here’s our schedule for the night:
5:30 PM – Doors open for networking and refreshments
5:50 PM – Announcements
6:00 PM – Jason’s talk
7:00 PM – Closing remarks and networking
There is street parking and on either side of the building.
As always, pizza and beer will be served as refreshments.
for search engine: data engineer, data analytics, big data, data engineers, data architect, data services, data developer, data analyst

RVA.js
2020-03-03 18:00 - 20:00 | unboxed Training & Technology, 2201 W Broad St suite 202, Richmond, VA, 23220, United States
Custom Specialized Frameworks: An Interactive SVG/TypeScript Exp by Momin Khan
Presentation Abstract
When would you ever write a framework from scratch? The big web framework are all about general solutions, but many designs are unusual and don’t fit into a typical workflow. If you’ve ever run into one of those, you’ll know that React/Angular/etc are not time savers, and neither is stumbling along with unstructured JS. There is a better way: Custom Specialized Frameworks! This technique is pretty similar to what we do every day as programmers, but on a broader scale, and it will empower you to implement any design that comes your way.
We’ll see this in action using a recent project I had for an interactive, responsive, full-screen SVG homepage with over 5000 objects, strict requirements, and many unknowns. I’ll describe a straightforward process for designing and implementing a specialized framework for your specific project, that does nothing less and nothing more than what you need. We’ll look at the Typescript SVG animation framework I wrote in a very short time, and how it continually paid off to help me produce a highly tuned and optimized website for the client.

RVA Data Engineering
2020-03-10 17:30 - 19:30 | 3431 W Leigh St, 3431 W Leigh St, Richmond, VA
Building a Data and Analytics Platform from scratch is always difficult yet exciting and rewarding. There are many keys to success and getting this off the ground running before you get lost in the myriad of offerings, tools, and technologies ranging from Data Orchestration Tools, ETL / ELT, Cloud Data Warehouses, and BI tools.
During this talk, Peter Choe, Data Practice Leader at Ippon Technologies will discuss some of the key areas to consider, tools and important concepts to ensure success in the delivery of a data platform. We’ll walk you through a recent customer success story who decided on using Airflow, Stitch, Databricks, Snowflake, and Looker, and walk through some of the key factors into making these decisions and finally discuss some great KPIs and ROIs that was realized very early on.
Speaker: Peter Choe, Data Practice Leader @ Ippon Technologies USA
Here’s our schedule for the night:
5:30 PM – Doors open for networking and refreshments
5:50 PM – Announcements
6:00 PM – Talk
7:00 PM – Closing remarks and networking
There is street parking and on either side of the building.
As always, food and drink will be served
for search engine: data engineer, data analytics, big data, data engineers, data architect, data services, data developer, data analyst

PyRVA (Python User Group - Richmond, VA)
2020-03-11 18:00 - 20:00 | 4521 Highwoods Parkway, 4521 Highwoods Pkwy, Glen Allen, VA
The web is rapidly going through changes. What web frameworks are relevant today? Are Django and Flask the way to go? Are there any other frameworks worth considering? What if I don’t want to manage a server, is there anything that can help me?
Chris May, one of the PyRVA founders, python addict, and long-time web developer, will share his perspective on the python ecosystem.
He’ll address your myriad of options you have when it comes to getting things done on the web.
Come out, connect with fellow python users, and learn something you didn’t know about python!

Richmond SQL Server Users Group
2020-03-11 18:30 - 20:00 | 4600 Cox RD Glen Allen Va, 4600 Cox Rd, Glen Allen, VA, United States
Have you ever wanted to build an SSRS report but didn’t know where to start? Are you an experienced SSRS report builder but had a difficult time getting information to repeat on every page in a SSRS report? This session will cover how to build a report from scratch like a pro and dive deeper into some more advanced SSRS functionality. This session will also cover some advanced topics that even a Google search is not very helpful with.
Speaker Bio
Robbie Staples has over 15 years of experience writing SQL queries and 5 years working with SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) in SQL 2016 Database Development. He has worked in the power, banking, transportation, healthcare and semiconductor industries with most of his experience being in the power industry. He has his Electrical Engineering degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and is a licensed Professional Engineer in Virginia and Texas. He is currently employed by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative as a Software Developer focused on automating manual processes and bringing data to the forefront of the company.

RVA Software Development User Group
2020-03-17 18:00 - 19:30 | 4800 Cox Rd Ste 100, 4800 Cox Rd Ste 100, Glen Allen, VA, United States
Have you been hearing about Google’s Firebase platform? Are you looking for a way to build and deploy a serverless API? This talk will introduce the Firebase platform, and walk you through how fun (and powerful) it is to use. We will be covering how you can leverage Firebase Cloud Functions to build a serverless API. The talk will include an example project and will walk through CRUD operations. The talk will also cover how you can manage a deployed API with Firebase. The goal of this talk is to introduce how to build APIs with Firebase, and demonstrate how they can help you in your projects.
Speaker: Andrew Evans
Andrew is a Manager at CapTech Consulting. Andrew’s worked for over 10 years as a Software Engineer on a variety of platforms and projects. Andrew has an active blog and also routinely makes contributions to a variety of publications including Angular-In-Depth and LogRocket. Andrew holds both a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Christopher Newport University, and an MBA from William and Mary. When not working on Software, Andrew can be found with his wife and family here in Richmond, VA.

RVA.js
2020-03-18 18:30 - 20:00 | 6802 Paragon Place, Richmond, va, 23230, 6802 Paragon Place, Richmond,, VA, 23230
Presentation Abstract
In this talk, we’ll explore what observability is, how to apply it, and how it can be leveraged to provide quantifiable value to the business.
We’ll start with a fictional logistics company whose legacy infrastructure struggles to keep up. We will work through designing a micro-services architecture that seeks to solve their issues, and then instrument that new system using observability techniques. We will discuss the different layers of instrumentation and how each layer drives us closer to being able to deliver business value.
Next, we will talk through in detail the ‘business layer’ – using statsd to collect business-specific metrics that are relevant to the operation and success of the company. We will then build visualizations around this data, giving us a granular view into the operation of the system. We will then discuss how to interpret this data, giving us an understanding of how system performance at all levels impact our fictional customer(s) directly.
Finally, we will discuss a methodology for instrumenting your own environments to make them observable and the benefits that these can provide to your business – from capacity planning, to forecasting, to an observability-driven backlog and more.

ScrumRVA
2020-03-31 18:00 - 19:30 | Capital One Bank, 10700 Capital One Way, Glen Allen
AGENDA:
6pm: Pizza & Networking
6:30pm: ScrumRVA Gathering
8pm: Done/Break-down/Networking
8:30pm: Done, Done
Join us for the March ScrumRVA Meetup where Mike Vizdos will help us all, both seasoned and new Scrum practitioners, get back to the basics. This will be a highly interactive session during which we dig into real world issues from Scrum implementations.
Mike’s website: https://www.michaelvizdos.com/.

Richmond AWS User Group
2020-04-08 17:30 - 19:30 | 3431 W Leigh St, 3431 W Leigh St, Richmond, VA
Local ML guru Vida Williams & one of her top engineers will come talk to us about how to think about integrating ML with cloud architecture, which ML tools do what within AWS, and how, as cloud engineers, we can understand this hairy beast.
