Design Groups Near Me

NFT AI ART Columbus

NFT's are here to stay folks! This is a group for like minded people interested in understanding, leveraging, using, creating for, profiting from, trading too i suppose, NFT's.. everything around them, complexity, fear and exploits, best practices and more. **PLUS** This group will talk AI ART tools, techniques, artists, video, audio, prototypes and more in the AI assisted production space- ART specifically, but we can get into any aspect of some of the cooler things happening in AI in general.

American Sign Language Beginners Meetup Group

We meet to learn and practice American Sign Language and to grow our familiarity with Deaf culture. Facilitated by hearing folks (with a connection to a professional interpreter) using Deaf-created content. People of all ASL skill levels are welcome! As we learn, we hope to connect more with the Deaf community in Central Ohio. Join us as you're able! Come regularly or just once - whatever you're looking for! Each meetup will explore different topics related to ASL/Deaf culture, and will feature time to practice conversation with one another. Just bring yourself and a willingness to learn!

Fall Arts & Crafternoon

**Join us for a Fall Sunday Crafternoon!** Whether you are looking to carve out dedicated creative time, wanting to get a lingering project across the finish line, or just looking to chat with fellow local makers—this is the space for you. 🧵 **What to Bring** Bring any art or craft project you are currently working on, as long as it is portable and quiet. Think: * **Yarn & Thread:** Knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross-stitch, hand-sewing, mending. * **Paper & Sketching:** Sketchbooks, adult coloring books, watercolors, bullet journaling. * **Digital:** Tablets, iPad drawing, laptop writing/design. * *Please note: Because we are meeting in a shared public space, no power tools, sewing machines, or high-odor materials (like strong solvents or spray glues), please!* **📍 Where to Find Us** * We will be meeting at **Columbus Metropolitan Library - Parsons Branch** in **Meeting Room 1**. Room is reserved under **CBUS Maker Meetup.** **⏱️ Timeline** * **1:00 PM:** Arrive, grab a seat, get settled, and do a quick round of introductions so we can see what everyone is working on. * **1:15 PM - 3:00 PM:** Open maker time! Chat, craft, relax, and swap creative ideas. **⚠️ A Note on RSVPs** Space for this meetup is limited to 10 spots. If your plans change and you can no longer attend, please update your RSVP to "Not Going" as soon as possible so someone on the waitlist can grab your spot. We ask that you try to give at least 48 hours' notice if you need to cancel. *** **We can't wait to meet you and see what you're making! All skill levels welcome.**

Dine & Destroy 💥

Columbus Code & Coffee 91 @ Improving

Columbus Code & Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session. People of all skill levels attend, and we love it that way. Many people (optionally) bring projects to work on, and many other people (optionally) socialize the entire time. It's entirely up to you! **What to Expect at the Intro Circle** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ Near the beginning of the event (1:30 pm), we do a standup: * Organizer announcements, updates, and logistics Round 1 - (7 secs max): * Your name * What you're working on * What you can help others with Round 2: * Community events you wanna plug. If none, that's cool too. Round 3: * Job opportunities you're hiring for OR announce that you are looking for one. If none, that's cool. After the introduction circle, everything is self-organized! Feel free to work alone, pair up, attend one of our workshops/presentations, or mingle!

Fun & easy way to play more tennis (read event description)

We’re still working to get more people into these Meetups, but our goal is to give PlayYourCourt members a few social tennis outings each week in addition to your practice sessions and Challenge League matches. These Meetups are co-ed, super laid back, and all skill levels are welcome. Post your skill level and a suggested court in the comments section so we can round up as many players as we can for some tennis fun! Also, if you’re looking to meet new practice partners or play some matches and you aren’t already in the PlayYourCourt Community, you can go here to see what we’re all about and sign up: https://www.playyourcourt.com/tennis-community/columbus-oh/meetup/ If you love tennis, we’d love to have you! Be sure and watch the quick video that explains how everything works. Happy hitting! - Scott

Columbus PHP: Monthly Meetup

Our monthly PHP meetup. A virtual shindig courtesy of Zoom. Check back here for the details around 6:15 pm

< $200 /Month, Ready for Infinity: Modernizing CRM with Claude + AWS in 90 Days

What happens when a fast-growing business outgrows a CRM built to handle 100–200 customers a year? In this session, I'll walk through how I used Claude and AWS to modernize the entire operation in just three months, scaling it to handle an unlimited number of customers for under $200 a month. We'll start with the foundation: a serverless sync that pulls CRM data into RDS Postgres every hour during business hours, plus on demand when key operations happen. This gives the business fast, flexible reporting without overloading the CRM. From there, we'll look at how leads from multiple sources now flow through a single Lambda function, and how new front-end and back-end tools transformed lead handling, sales pipeline visibility, and company-wide reporting. You'll also get the behind-the-scenes examples that made this pace possible: * CI/CD pipelines that let you deploy quickly and often * Using code reviews as the main quality gate for every release * Tips for writing a CLAUDE.md file that maximizes your workflow * A shared STYLE.md that keeps standards consistent across projects * Splitting and combining projects with separate CloudFormation templates so they stay easy to update and simple to maintain Whether you're a solo developer, a consultant, or part of a lean team, you'll leave with practical patterns for building scalable, low-cost systems on AWS, and for getting the most out of AI as a development partner. **SPEAKER BIO** Angelo Mandato is an AWS Columbus User Group leader, AWS Community Builder, and Certified Solutions Architect - Associate who has been developing solutions on AWS since 2007. https://angelo.mandato.com **CALL FOR SPEAKERS** Learn more: [https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/](https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/) **THANK YOU** *VEEAM* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Veeam*, please visit their website: [https://www.veeam.com/](https://www.veeam.com/) **DIRECTIONS** 8800 Lyra Dr #450 · Columbus, OH go to 4th floor. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Columbus Genuine Locals Age Matched Speed Dating

**UPDATE: This event has been rescheduled and is now set to begin at 5:00 PM on Sun, Oct 18 (local time).** Virtual speed dating hosted on Zoom for singles living in Columbus. Enjoy rapid private rounds with participants in your age group, all from the comfort of home. Simply RSVP and we will contact you with the necessary information. Availability is restricted and the gathering might be called off if attendance is insufficient.

Building a RAG Assistant with Azure AI Search + Azure OpenAI

**From React Docs to AI Answers: Building a RAG Assistant with Azure AI Search + Azure OpenAI** In this session, I’ll walk through how to build an AI-powered documentation assistant for a modern React web product using Azure AI Search, Azure OpenAI, and a Next.js frontend. The talk will focus on a practical use case: taking documentation, component examples, and product content, indexing it for retrieval, and using that context to generate grounded answers inside a web app. I’ll cover the architecture, data flow, prompt design, chunking strategy, deployment approach, and common mistakes developers run into when adding AI to real web products. The session will include code examples and a demo-style walkthrough showing how a developer could turn static docs or internal knowledge into an interactive AI assistant. Attendees will leave with a practical blueprint for building their own RAG-powered web experience on Azure without turning it into an overcomplicated cloud architecture.

Beyond Basic Text-to-SQL:Enterprise-Grade Conversational AI w/Databricks Genie

**Beyond Basic Text-to-SQL: Building Enterprise-Grade Conversational AI with Databricks Genie** Conversational AI is transforming how business leaders and data teams interact with enterprise knowledge, but translating natural language into reliable, enterprise-grade business intelligence requires far more than standard Text-to-SQL capabilities. In this session, we explore how **Databricks Genie** delivers accurate, context-aware, and secure conversational analytics across the lakehouse platform. How does it all come together? You'll learn about: * **Unity Catalog as the Foundation:** Discover why conversational AI is only as good as its underlying governance and metadata. Learn how Unity Catalog provides the granular access controls, lineage, unified metadata, and rich semantic context essential for generating trustworthy, safe, and compliant analytical insights. * **Genie Agents:** Go beyond single-prompt queries to explore how autonomous Genie Agents handle complex multi-turn reasoning, iterative problem-solving, and workflow orchestration across complex datasets. * **Genie One:** Experience how Genie One unifies natural language interaction, visualization, and deep enterprise analytics into a seamless, high-performance platform experience. Whether you are a data leader aiming to democratize self-service analytics or an architect building next-generation AI workflows, this talk will provide actionable insights and practical patterns for leveraging Databricks Genie to make data accessible to everyone across your organization.

Haunted Hike Through Walhalla Ravine

**Dare to Enter Walhalla Ravine?** There are places in Columbus where the city seems to disappear. Walk far enough into **Walhalla Ravine**, beneath the old trees and steep wooded hillsides, and the traffic grows distant. The houses above become harder to see. The path narrows, shadows gather beneath the canopy, and suddenly it becomes very easy to understand why people have been telling strange stories about this place for generations. Stories of **murder, apparitions beneath the bridge, unexplained lights, and the thing once whispered about as the Walhalla Witch** have become part of Clintonville folklore. Most have been embellished over the years. Some can be debunked. Others are simply stories with no way left to determine where the truth ended and the legend began. We’re going in anyway. **Disclaimer:** This is **NOT a scripted ghost tour**, and **I’m NOT a professional storyteller. I'm not here to entertain.** **Think of it more as a group adventure**: we’ll hike, explore, discuss the legends and history, and see some of the locations that inspired the stories for ourselves. Come prepared to walk, explore, and get a little off the beaten path. **Click Here: [Read about the ghosts and legends of Walhalla Ravine](https://thearcanefoundry.com/daclaud-lee/haunted-columbus/walhalla-ravine-the-ghosts-witch-legends-of-columbus-ohio/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)** This is a FREE event. Tips are appreciated (but never required) for showing you the hidden paths and lesser-known parts of the ravine. Just a reminder: **if you RSVP, please make every effort to attend.** This is going to be a 3-mile hike, so please make sure you can do this. There may also be some slightly rugged terrain (nothing too crazy) but depending on where we end up, there might be some light climbing. **OPTIONAL:** Afterward, anyone who wants to keep the evening going can join us nearby for drinks at Derive Brewing Company or pizza and drinks at Hounddog’s.