Digital Marketing

## **Import & Export — Learn the Model, Remove the Risk, Build the Business** **Casual Learning & Support Session \| LeaderSHIFT Community** There is growing interest in import/export as a business — but most people get stuck on the same questions: * Where do I start? * How do I avoid getting burned? * How do I finance deals safely? * How do I find real clients (not tire-kickers)? This session is designed to answer those questions clearly and practically. ### **📌 Format (Two-Part Session)** **First Hour – Foundations (Beginner Friendly)** This is a structured walkthrough for anyone who wants to understand the business from the ground up. We will cover: * How the import/export business actually works * How to structure deals using government programs and banks to reduce or eliminate risk * How financing can be used properly (without putting yourself in danger) * How to find clients and generate deal flow * Common mistakes and traps to avoid All attendees will receive a **free booklet and resource package** with the information needed to begin setting up their own import/export business. **Second Hour – Open Support & Deal Discussion (Optional)** This portion is for: * People already working on deals * Those who understand the model and want deeper discussion * Anyone seeking feedback on a specific roadblock * Individuals who want to offer insight, support, or collaboration It becomes a collaborative, peer-supported environment rather than a formal presentation. ### **☕ Setting** This is a **casual, low-pressure meetup** held at Second Cup (Sheppard Centre, Yonge & Sheppard). Grab a coffee, bring your questions, and engage at your own pace. No pitches. No hype. Just real knowledge, real structure, and real conversation.

RSVP on TribalScale's RSVP Page: https://www.tribalscale.com/events/iwd-gdg-women-tech-makers Two workshops for women in tech ready to move their careers forward. Financial strategy + AI agent design. About This Event International Women's Day isn't about celebrating how far we've come. It's about building the skills that get you where you're going next. Join 50 women in tech for two practical workshops: 6:00 PM — Financial Strategy How to manage equity, negotiate better, and build wealth that lets you take career risksLed by Lesley-Anne Scorgie, financial expert featured on Oprah 6:35 PM — Designing AI Agents Hands-on technical learning in one of tech's fastest-moving areasSpeaker details coming soon Who This Is For Early to mid-career women in tech. Developers, designers, PMs, technical leaders. If you want tactical skills (not motivational speeches), this is for you. Schedule 5:30 PM — Doors open, networking 5:45 PM — Welcome 6:00 PM — Financial strategy workshop 6:35 PM — AI agents workshop 7:10 PM — Rapid networking 7:30 PM — Event concludes Drinks and snacks provided. What to Bring Yourself. Maybe a notebook if you like taking notes. Location The Combine 225 Wellington St W, Toronto, ON M5V 3G7, Canada Enter via 35 John St and take the elevator upstairs. Someone will meet you at 35 John St to let you in. Please note that all is subject to change by the organizer. Agenda --- Hosted By Solomon Hsu, GDG Organizer I believe in one mandate in the digital space: Crafting Authentic Digital Experiences for All People. With that vision, I value digital accessibility and user centric design as the core foundation for all my projects. It is within the users' insights and needs that allow us to build great apps. Hiral Thaker, Co-organizer Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-toronto-presents-break-the-pattern-iwd-2026-with-gdg-toronto/.

**This is an in person meeting every Wednesday.** **IMPORTANT: You must register to attend the meeting. Additional meeting details will be sent once you have registered for the meeting:** To Pre-register please send an email to **themarketeers@live.com** with your **Full Name, Phone Number and Business Name , Business Category and Email Address.** BNI Marketeers - We always have at least 20-25 members at our weekly meetings even if meetup doesn't show that many attending. We are looking to add 20 new members to our chapter. Come out as a visitor and see what it is all about. You get to network with 20-40 business owners and have a fabulous lunch. There is a cost of $45/person (paid at the venue) for the meeting which includes the cost of lunch. We meet in the Highway 7 and Leslie St area in Richmond Hill. Meetings start promptly at 11:45 and run until 1:30.

## **Global Service Jam – Toronto (March 13–15)** We’re hosting the Toronto edition of the **Global Service Jam** — a 2-day, hands-on design sprint happening simultaneously in cities around the world. Participants receive a shared “secret” theme on Friday evening and work in small teams to design and prototype service ideas over the weekend. This is not a talk or panel event. It’s collaborative, experimental, and focused on learning by doing. **Format** • Friday + Saturday: Core Jam • Sunday: Optional showcase + celebratory lunch 🎟 **Registration is required via Luma** Spots are limited and tickets are managed there. 👉 **Register here:** [https://luma.com/85b13pet](https://luma.com/85b13pet) Hosted by Service Design Drinks Toronto. Supported by Highline Beta.

Toptracer Winter Golf League @ The Docks Overview Weekly 9-hole Toptracer Virtual Golf League — runs all winter. Men’s and Women’s divisions. $50 Docks Gift Card to weekly low gross in each division (requires ≥10 entrants; rolls over if not met). $200 monthly Gift Card for ≥25 total entrants (rolls over if not met). All scoring is automatic via Toptracer leaderboard — no manual scorecards. Starting 5 November 2025 17:30 - 9 November 2025 23:59 weekly Wednesday to Sunday Regular Driving range rates apply (rates posted at www.thedocks.com)

Hi everyone! We're doing an afternoon impromptu hangout at Chefs Hall. Location: 111 Richmond St W, Toronto, ON M5H 2G4 A sort walk from Osgoode subway station. head south on University till you reach Richmond St and head east along Richmond St. you should see Chefs Hall on the south side of Richmond. **First time meeting us and still not sure about the vibe?** Check out photos from **[past in-person events of 2023](https://www.meetup.com/artsrecto/photos/34212927/)** Bring your art supplies (mainly dry medium or small watercolour set), and order a warm drink and snacks. Looking forward to meeting you all :) === ================ **Support This Group 🥰🤩** We hope you're enjoying the Arts & Rec events! If you'd like to give support, please consider making a small Ko-fi donation of $5-10 USD at [https://www.ko-fi.com/artsnrectoronto](https://www.ko-fi.com/artsnrectoronto.) . This helps cover meetup and miscellaneous expenses with hosting events! For more inquiries, please PM me for more info! Thank you all so much!

***Tickets must be purchased in advance!*** 🔗: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/toronto-engineering-energy-infrastructure-networking-event-tickets-1984505642799?aff=ebdsoporgprofile Get ready to connect and network with Houston's top engineering, energy, and infrastructure pros at our networking event!

Important Register on the [event website](https://www.aicamp.ai/event/eventdetails/W2026031214) (Due to room capacity and building security, you must pre-register at the link for admission) **Description:** Welcome to the AI meetup in Toronto. Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and Agent, hands-on experiences on code labs, workshops, and networking with speakers and fellow developers. **Speakers/Topics:** \- Eli Aleyner \(Docker\) Stay tuned as we are updating speakers and schedules. If you have a keen interest in speaking to our community, we invite you to submit topics for consideration: [Submit Topics](https://forms.gle/JkMt91CZRtoJBSFUA) **Sponsors:** We are actively seeking sponsors to support AI developers community. Whether it is by offering venue spaces, providing food, or cash sponsorship. Sponsors will not only speak at the meetups, receive prominent recognition, but also gain exposure to our extensive membership base of 10,000+ AI developers in Toronto or 500K+ worldwide.

New Rules: Starting now, we are asking that each person contribute $2 towards maintaining this page. Without our space here on MeetUp, there is no group. So we ask that you bring a tooney when you come to keep us operational. Thank you very much! Thank you to everyone who has ordered something to eat or drink. It's very important that we each make a purchase, even just a tea or coffee, to maintain our welcome. Mil veces, gracias!

We're excited to bring the community together for an evening of learning and connection! Come support your fellow developers, learn something new, and meet others who are passionate about search, observability, and security. **Date and Time:** Thursday, March, 12th from 5:30-7:30 pm **Agenda:** * 5:30 pm: Doors open; say hi, grab a seat, and eat some food. * 6:00 pm: Building Agentic AI on ELK stack, by **Gleb Gadyatskiy**, Principal Engineer at PointClickCare * 6:30 pm: Q&A * 6:40 pm: "One Does Not Simply Query a Stream", by **Viktor Gamov** is a Principal Developer Advocate at Confluent * 7:10 pm: Q&A * 7:20-7:30 pm: Networking & refreshments **Talk Abstracts:** **"Building Agentic AI on ELK stack"** Story how I built AI Agent using pure ELK + LLM to automate incidents investigations 1. What is AI Agent, ELK and why I decided to build AI Agent using only ELK 2. Building simple AI Agent using pure Logstash pipelines 3. Building advance AI Agent using Ruby plugin 4. Connecting AI Agent to Elastic AI Assistant **Gleb Gadyatskiy** is a Principal Engineer at PointClickCare. He is a part of the Infrastructure Architecture team and describes his role as “the first line in attack and the last line in defense”. Gleb provides support for all teams to aggregate logs from various apps into Elasticsearch, use AI to get insights from logs and actively promotes Elastic stack in PointClickCare. Gleb enjoys outdoor traveling with his wife and two kids in a camper. **"One Does Not Simply Query a Stream"** Streaming data with Apache Kafka® has become the backbone of modern applications. While streams are ideal for continuous data flow, they lack built-in querying capabilities. Unlike databases with indexed lookups, Kafka’s append-only logs are designed for high-throughput processing—not for on-demand queries. This necessitates additional infrastructure to query streaming data effectively. Traditional approaches replicate stream data into external stores: relational databases like PostgreSQL for operational queries, object storage like S3 accessed via Flink, Spark, or Trino for analytics, and Elasticsearch for full-text search and log analytics. Each serves a purpose—but they also introduce silos, schema mismatches, freshness issues, and complex ETL pipelines that increase system fragility. In this session, we’ll explore solutions that aim to unify operational, analytical, and search workloads across real-time data. We'll demonstrate stream processing with Kafka Streams, Apache Flink®, and SQL engines; real-time analytics with Apache Pinot®; search capabilities with Elasticsearch; and modern lakehouse approaches using Apache Iceberg® with Tableflow to represent Kafka topics as queryable tables. While there's no one-size-fits-all solution, understanding the tools and trade-offs will help you design more robust and flexible architectures. **Viktor Gamov** is a Principal Developer Advocate at Confluent, founded by the original creators of Apache Kafka®. With a rich background in implementing and advocating for distributed systems and cloud-native architectures, Viktor excels in open-source technologies. He is passionate about assisting architects, developers, and operators in crafting systems that are not only low in latency and scalable but also highly available. As a Java Champion and an esteemed speaker, Viktor is known for his insightful presentations at top industry events like JavaOne, Devoxx, Kafka Summit, and QCon. His expertise spans distributed systems, real-time data streaming, JVM, and DevOps. Viktor has co-authored "Enterprise Web Development" from O'Reilly and "Apache Kafka® in Action" from Manning. Follow Viktor on X - @gamussa to stay updated with Viktor's latest thoughts on technology, his gym and food adventures, and insights into open-source and developer advocacy. **Location:** Improving Office 171 East Liberty St Unit 235 Toronto, Ontario M6K 3P6 **Directions (171 E Liberty St - Suite 235)** **By transit** Streetcars 504 and 509 both travel close to the office (less than 10 minute walk to the office from either), the lakeshore GO train is also a 5 minute walk from the office. **By car/parking** On street parking is available - there are a handful of paid parking spots directly in front of the entrance - with a large city parking lot across the street. **Entrance** The entrance to the office is beside the Bulk Barn entrance facing Hannah Street. There is an Improving logo on the door.

## **Global Service Jam – Toronto (March 13–15)** We’re hosting the Toronto edition of the **Global Service Jam** — a 2-day, hands-on design sprint happening simultaneously in cities around the world. Participants receive a shared “secret” theme on Friday evening and work in small teams to design and prototype service ideas over the weekend. This is not a talk or panel event. It’s collaborative, experimental, and focused on learning by doing. **Format** • Friday + Saturday: Core Jam • Sunday: Optional showcase + celebratory lunch 🎟 **Registration is required via Luma** Spots are limited and tickets are managed there. 👉 **Register here:** [https://luma.com/85b13pet](https://luma.com/85b13pet) Hosted by Service Design Drinks Toronto. Supported by Highline Beta.

IMPORTANT: You must also register at this link [Henry's Church - Crafting Impactful Portraits with Raph Nogal Tickets, Friday, Mar 13 from 1 pm to 3 pm | Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/henrys-church-crafting-impactful-portraits-with-raph-nogal-tickets-1983618316783?aff=oddtdtcreator) Join professional photographer, Raph Nogal, at Henry’s Church St. for an inspiring and creative workshop sponsored by Sony and Profoto. This workshop is free to attend. This session dives into shaping light with intention — from concept to execution — using Sony camera system & lenses, and Profoto lighting tools to create bold, dimensional portraits. Raph will break down his approach to building mood, directing subjects, and crafting images that feel both cinematic and commercially polished. Perfect for photographers looking to elevate their lighting, refine their creative process, and produce work that stands out. **Follow Raph on instagram (@raphnogal) and make sure to subscribe to his YouTube channel (@RaphNogalPhotography)** **About Raph:** Raph Nogal is a Polish-Canadian professional photographer based in Toronto (est. 2009). Known for his bold use of colour, hard light, and sculpted shadow, Raph specializes in commercial, editorial, and lifestyle photography. His work is defined by a creative off-camera lighting approach that blends cinematic mood with commercial precision. Raph is a Profoto Ambassador, Sony Pro, and active educator and speaker, regularly sharing his expertise on lighting, creative direction, and visual storytelling. Before transitioning fully into commercial work, he built a strong foundation as a wedding photographer. A 24-time recipient of the WPPI Honours of Excellence Awards, Raph is also a Fearless Photographers Award winner, Shutterfest Print Competition Award winner, and a PPOC award recipient, with images selected for both National and Regional Loan Collections across Canada.

Important Register on the [event website](https://www.aicamp.ai/event/eventdetails/W2026031214) (Due to room capacity and building security, you must pre-register at the link for admission) **Description:** Welcome to the AI meetup in Toronto. Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and Agent, hands-on experiences on code labs, workshops, and networking with speakers and fellow developers. **Speakers/Topics:** \- Eli Aleyner \(Docker\) Stay tuned as we are updating speakers and schedules. If you have a keen interest in speaking to our community, we invite you to submit topics for consideration: [Submit Topics](https://forms.gle/JkMt91CZRtoJBSFUA) **Sponsors:** We are actively seeking sponsors to support AI developers community. Whether it is by offering venue spaces, providing food, or cash sponsorship. Sponsors will not only speak at the meetups, receive prominent recognition, but also gain exposure to our extensive membership base of 10,000+ AI developers in Toronto or 500K+ worldwide.

Let's grab some coffee/food and share a morning chat! The East Market has an ample parking lot and outdoor and indoor seating. Grab a cup of coffee from Winston's Coffee & Waffles or on your way to East Market and meet us on the second floor - table behind or east of the elevator. Per what this group is about: "Everyone is welcome! International transplants to Columbus who want to improve language skills, Columbus residents who want to discuss international travel and culture, and anyone who enjoys getting together for good conversations."

**Google Analytics Alternatives** Is it finally time to make the switch away from Google Analytics? Two-and-a-half years ago Jason Packer asked this question at Columbus Web Analytics Wednesday. Since then: Google’s Universal Analytics has been sunset, we’ve changed our name to Columbus Data & Analytics Wednesday, and Jason has released two editions of his book “Google Analytics Alternatives”. Fresh off the release of the 2nd edition of his book, we thought it was time to re-open this conversation. While people love to complain about it, GA’s market share has remained relatively constant (at least in the United States). Why is that? You won’t find any complaints about GA4 in this talk, but rather an overview of what’s currently available in the market and how to frame your decision-making process. We’ll also be giving out some free copies of Jason’s book! So even if you’ve got a “GA4Lyfe” tattoo (no judgement), there’s free books to go with the free pizza and beer. Thanks to our 2026 sponsors: [Clarivoy](https://www.clarivoy.com), [What Box Consulting Group](https://www.whatboxconsultinggroup.com), [Conductrics](https://www.conductrics.com), and [Piwik PRO](https://piwik.pro) More info at [cbusdaw.com](https://cbusdaw.com)

One of the most valuable parts of this community is the opportunity to think out loud with other product professionals. This session is built for exactly that. As we wrap up the quarter, it’s a great time to pause and reflect. What’s on track? What needs adjustment? Where could a small shift create bigger impact? Join fellow product professionals for a focused, interactive conversation designed to help you recalibrate for the next quarter. You’ll have the opportunity to share where you are, hear how others are thinking through similar challenges, and gain fresh perspective you can bring back to your team and organization. We’ll gather at 8:00AM, with discussion starting promptly at 8:15AM. 📍 First Watch - 7227 N High St Located in: The Shops at Worthington Ample parking is available. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Start your morning with clarity and connection — we hope to see you there! ☀️

Evolve exists to connect women entrepreneurs connect with one another, serve one another, and help one another overcome challenges in marketing, sales, networking, and professional development. [Add to Calendar](evolvecolumbus.eventcalendarapp.com) What to Expect: \~ Welcome team to greet you, introduce you to others, and make sure you feel a part of the group from your very first meeting \~ Welcome & Introductions: 15 second introductions \~ 15 Minute Speaker Spotlight: Member speaker who shares a bit of her story, how she got to doing what she does, and a tangible tip she uses to gain success in her business. No hard selling...no expectations. Simply giving the group an opportunity to get to know her and her journey. \~ 20 Minute Break Out Sessions: Small groups is where we connect best. Extroverted and Introverted alike get the opportunity to share on a deeper level and learn from one another. \~ Take Aways: Hear what the other groups talked about and share resources to grow yourself and your business \~ Grow Time!: Do you need a specific connection to a person, company, or industry? Share it with us! We love to open our networks to one another and grow together! Guests are always welcome. Please contact Mentor Director Donna Schomer at Donna@EvolveWomensNetwork.com for more information. We'd love to meet you!

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!

**Understanding the Columbus Housing Market: Let’s Talk Downsizing for Seniors** Understanding the Market to Make Your Best Move Yet Thinking about downsizing or helping a parent prepare for a move? Join us for a friendly, educational seminar designed specifically for seniors in Central Ohio. We’ll break down what’s happening in today’s Columbus housing market, explore timing and planning for downsizing, and discuss easy ways to prepare a longtime home for sale—without overwhelm. You’ll also learn about low‑maintenance housing options, financial considerations, and simple steps to make your next move smooth and stress‑free. This is a relaxed, no‑pressure event where you can ask questions and get practical advice tailored to seniors and their families. Hosted by: Katie McCartney, Broker & Senior Real Estate Specialist® (SRES)

Discover Kiro, AWS’s innovative development environment that adapts to your workflow. Whether you prefer specification-driven development or a more intuitive, vibe-based approach, Kiro empowers you to build applications your way. In this session, speakers will explore Kiro’s core functionality and its evolution through re:Invent 2025, along with demonstrations of prompts used to create APIs, hooks, and steering documents. In the latter part of the session, watch as we build a complete example from scratch, showcasing Kiro’s agentic AI workflow in action for spec-driven development and vibe coding. What You'll Learn - Core Kiro concepts and development philosophy Feature evolution: pre and post re:Invent 2025 Practical examples: API creation, hooks, and steering docs Live coding demonstration with real-time problem solving Who Should Attend - Developers, solutions architects, and technical leaders interested in modern AWS development tools and AI-assisted coding workflows. **Speakers Bio:** Matthew Jorat: Matthew Jorat is a Customer Solutions Manager at AWS with nearly three decades of expertise in AI, cloud transformation, migration, modernization, IT, technology, and business. His career spans infrastructure engineer, solutions architect, security auditor, customer success director, support and services director, and operations officer. He was an early adopter of AWS services as a customer, and his current role at AWS uniquely blends his technical and business skills as he partners with executive teams to translate strategic priorities into measurable business outcomes through cloud adoption, AI implementation, and operational excellence. Matt leads end-to-end AI initiatives for enterprise customers, identifying high-impact use cases and maintaining relentless focus on measurable ROI. He holds eight AWS certifications and serves as Adjunct Professor at Franklin University teaching cloud computing and AWS architecture. His expertise encompasses GenAI, agentic AI systems, migration, modernization, and optimization strategies that drive transformation at scale. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjorat/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjorat/) Girish Bhatia: Girish Bhatia is a seasoned technology delivery leader with deep expertise in cross-domain program management. He holds multiple AWS certifications, including AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, AWS Certified Developer – Associate, and AWS Generative AI Practitioner, and is also an AWS Community Builder. Girish brings over two decades of experience in the information technology industry. Throughout his career, Girish has led major technology-driven business transformation from modernizing on-premises applications to driving large-scale cloud migrations. His work includes API-based integration platforms, data-center and mainframe modernization, and enterprise cloud adoption initiatives. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Girish works at a tech-forward fintech company. He is passionate about AWS serverless architectures, Generative AI and emerging cloud technologies. An avid learner and builder, he continues to explore and apply the latest innovations in AWS to help organizations accelerate their digital transformation. https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/[https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/) **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **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