About us
Practical AI Thessaloniki is a meetup dedicated to showing how AI addresses real-life needs with practical solutions. Each session tells a story, beginning with a real-world problem, planning a solution, and demonstrating AI tools—many from the open-source community—that are tested to meet the need. Attendees experience AI beyond theory, seeing it applied in practical scenarios. In some events, there will be the chance to explore these tools hands-on in collaborative sessions, making AI accessible and relevant.
What makes this event unique?
At Practical AI Thessaloniki, attendees witness a full end-to-end AI scenario unfold—from identifying a real-world need to building a solution using AI tools, many of which are open-source. Rather than just theoretical knowledge, attendees see the entire process in action and, in some events, can try these tools firsthand, gaining real experience in applying AI to practical challenges.
Who can attend the event?
Everyone is welcome! Whether you’re a professional, a student, or a hobbyist with an interest in AI, this event is designed to be accessible and engaging for all skill levels.
What should I bring to the meetup?
Just bring your laptop and a bit of Python knowledge to get the most out of the hands-on activities. Most importantly, come ready to learn, explore new tools, and dive into practical AI applications!
Upcoming events
1
Meetup #6 - Tame Your Coding Agents - Part of Hacktoberfest 2026
fromScratch Studio, Themistokli Sofouli 70Α, Thessaloniki 546 55, Greece, Thessaloniki, GRWelp, it is finally time! After the summer break, we're back, and we're teaming up with the Hacktoberfest event hosted by fromScratch Studio at their HQ in Thessaloniki (Themistokli Sofouli 70Α).
For those who may not know already, Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open source throughout October. This year, it’s all about building with open-weight models and open-source AI.
The Practical AI will kick off the event with a dedicated presentation by our co-organizer, George Kamtziridis, on how coding agents are affecting production environments and what we've learned from their use so far.
Coding agents have changed the way we write software. They can dramatically increase how much code we can produce, but that also creates a new problem: we're generating changes much faster than humans can properly review and understand them.
So, what happens when all that extra code makes its way into real products serving real users?
We'll take a look at the less obvious side of coding agents: the "noise" they can introduce into a codebase, the growing complexity and code churn, and the impact this can have on reviews, bugs, incidents, and ultimately production systems.
We'll also look at actual data and statistics from the industry and compare them with our own intuition about what we think coding agents are doing for us.
Finally, we'll talk about what it means to actually work with coding agents in production: where they shine, where they can get us into trouble, and why using them effectively isn't about letting them take over, but about learning how to keep them under control.
And of course, we're not done there! After the presentation, attendees will have the chance to team up and work on interesting project ideas using coding agents.
A laptop is required to participate in the coding activities with a coding agent of your choice.
Who can attend:
The event is free and open to everyone, from beginners to experts. Spots are limited, though, so make sure to reserve your place via:https://rebrand.ly/fs-hcktbrfst26pai
Event details:
Date: Saturday, 17/10/2026
Time: Doors open at 11:00am – presentations and coding until 5:00pm
Location: fromScratch Studio HQ, Themistokli Sofouli 70Α, Thessaloniki
Extras: Plenty of snacks provided to keep everyone up and runningHuge thanks to our sponsors fromScratch Studio and Noosware for making this event possible.
Please note that all presentations and discussions will be conducted in Greek.
24 attendees
Past events
5
