English Books & Literature

✨ Ела на вечер, в която изключваме телефоните и се включваме в реалността. ❗️Още на входа ги прибираме на сигурно място - за да ти подарим качествено време тук и сега. Очакват те три часа спокойствие и смислена споделеност - без дигитален шум, без бързане, без екрани. 🌿 Програмата: ✨Регистрация: 20:00 - 20:20 (Пристигащите оставят телефоните си на сигурно място под наш надзор, регистрират се и се потапят в офлайн атмосферата) ✨Уединение: 20:20 - 21:10 Време само за теб. Без разговори, без уведомления - само тишина и присъствие. Можеш да си вземеш книга, дневник, скицник или нещо, което все отлагаш за „когато имаш време“. Ще има и подготвени материали, които да вдъхновят уединението ти. ✨Споделеност: 21:10 – 22:40 Истински разговори с истински хора. В малки групи, с подбрани въпроси, които отключват автентични диалози - без маски, без напрежение. Просто човешко присъствие и смислено общуване. ✨Свобода: 22:40 – 23:30 Оставаш колкото ти е приятно. Можеш да продължиш разговорите, да споделиш впечатления, да обмениш контакти (на хартия 😉) или просто да се насладиш на спокойствието. ⚠️ВАЖНО Билети се закупуват само онлайн предварително. Ако разполагате с подаръчен ваучер, моля пишете ни за да ви запазим място. Местата са ограничени. Моля, носете си пари в брой или физическа карта, за да можете, ако искате, да си купувате неща на място, когато телефоните ви не са у вас. 📍 Място: Bar Singles (НДК) 💛 15 EUR (в цената са включени подбрани вкусотии от нашия разкошен партньор Хармоника) 🎟️ Регистрация (задължителна): в Luma (https://luma.com/sg4iafsx) 📅 Дата: 23.04.2026 🕖 Начало: 20:00ч. (събиране до 20:20) Доведи приятел или ела сам - най-хубавите вечери се случват офлайн. ✨ #TheOfflineSociety #SpringEdition #OfflineIsTheNewLuxury

​**🚀 FinOps Bulgaria Meetup #1 - FinOps in a Multi-Cloud AI World** ​Join us for the inaugural FinOps Bulgaria community meetup! Whether you're a FinOps practitioner, cloud architect, finance leader, or just curious about cloud cost optimisation, this is your chance to connect with peers and learn practical strategies. **!!! Reserve your seat** \- https://luma\.com/arwwaj1h ​**📅 Agenda:** ​**18:45** - **Doors Open & Registration** ​**19:00** - **Building the FinOps Community in Bulgaria** (\~15 min) Speakers: Ivaylo Vrabchev, Yordan Dabov ​**19:20** - **FinOps in a Multi-Cloud AI World: How to Control Costs When Value Lives Across Azure, Google Cloud and AWS** (\~30 min) Speaker: Yordan Dabov ​**20:00** - **Open Discussion** Speakers: all ​**What to Expect:** ​**🎯 Building the FinOps Community in Bulgaria** (15 min) Ivaylo Vrabchev and Yordan Dabov will share the vision behind FinOps Bulgaria and why now is the perfect time to build this community together. ​**☁️ FinOps in a Multi-Cloud AI World** (30 min) Speaker: Yordan Dabov will dive into the real challenges of controlling costs when your AI workloads span Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS. Learn practical approaches to visibility, allocation, and optimisation across multiple cloud providers. ​**🤝 Open Discussion** Let's talk about what matters to YOU and connect with fellow practitioners, share experiences, and build relationships over drinks and snacks: * ​What are your biggest FinOps challenges? * ​How does cost optimisation work in your company? * ​What dashboards and tools are you using ​**Who Should Attend:** * ​FinOps practitioners and cloud cost managers * ​DevOps and Platform engineers * ​CTOs, CFOs, and technical leaders * ​Anyone interested in Cloud & AI cost optimisation ​**Language:** The event will be conducted mainly in Bulgarian with some English here and there. ​**What to Bring:** Your questions, your challenges, and your curiosity! ​Looking forward to seeing you there! 🇧🇬

* **About the event:** **Continuous Product Discovery & Targeted User Research** Building successful products requires talking to your users, but *how* and *when* you talk to them makes all the difference. Continuous discovery is your 15-minute product "health check." It does not replace proper feature-based user research, it complements it. Join us for a practical meetup where we will break down exactly when to use continuous discovery versus targeted user research, and how the two approaches work together to drive product strategy. We will share actionable frameworks for catching high-level UX feedback, validating direction, and knowing exactly when to transition into deep, area-specific research. **What We’ll Cover:** * **The Core Framework:** Understand the difference between a 15-minute continuous discovery session (a high-level health check) and targeted, feature-based research. Learn when to use which approach and how to prevent your discovery calls from turning into support tickets or therapy sessions. * **Smart Recruitment & Triage:** Stop relying on the loudest customers. Learn how to use Amplitude data, Account Managers, and Community channels to reach your *core* users. We will show you how to use discovery sessions to build a repository of "awesome users" triaged for later, deep-dive research. * **Interviewing Best Practices:** We will share real-life anecdotes on how to ask situational questions rather than leading questions like "would you use this feature?" * **Scaling with Automation & AI:** Learn how to automate your feedback sessions and leverage AI to synthesize notes, spot 80/20 pain points, and write up interview patterns. **Who Should Attend:** Product Managers, UX Researchers, Product Marketers, and Designers who want to optimize their user feedback loops. * **About the speakers:** Krassi is a Senior Product Manager at LucidLink, where she focuses on identity, access, and permissions. Before LucidLink, she spent nearly 8 years at Sitecore, leading product initiatives across identity, developer platforms, and Marketplace, with a strong focus on developer and user experience. She’s particularly passionate about user experience through continuous product discovery - running customer interviews, uncovering real needs, and turning insights into products that solve meaningful problems. Igor is a Senior Staff Product Designer at LucidLink, focused on solving the right problems. Over 20 years of design experience have shaped his belief that listening to customers, separating signal from noise, identifying the pain points that matter most, and addressing them in a timely manner is what helps any company grow and stay ahead. * **About LucidLink:** LucidLink is the storage collaboration platform that frees creative teams to work together from anywhere. With a single shared filespace protected by zero-knowledge encryption, your team can instantly and securely access, edit and share projects of any size. Combining the ease of a local drive with the power of the cloud, LucidLink gives you on-demand access to your files. Now you can get straight to work without downloading, syncing or versioning disasters. Just like its customers, LucidLink's teams work together from anywhere. Privately held and headquartered in San Francisco, California, with an office in Sofia, Bulgaria, LucidLink's hybrid and remote employees work across Europe, North America, and Australia. Discover more at [www.lucidlink.com](http://www.lucidlink.com) **Come join the conversation!** 6:30 PM – Pre-event networking 7:00 PM – Official start

​At Progress, interns don't just shadow or observe. They own tasks, contribute to real projects and work alongside experienced teams from day one. 🚀 In this event with ***four former Progress interns***, the conversation will focus on what the experience actually looks like from the inside: 👉 What it means to do real work and make a tangible impact from early on 👉 How interns are trusted with their own responsibilities and what that feels like 👉 The mentorship and ongoing support that helps you grow with confidence 👉 How teams welcome interns and make them feel like they truly belong You'll also hear how the internship program is structured, what the recruitment process looks like and a few tips to help you put your best foot forward in interviews. This year Progress offers **13 internship opportunities** across a wide range of functions - Software Engineering, Product Management, Sales, Marketing, Business Operations and IT Security & Compliance, making this event relevant whether you're studying a technical or business discipline. **Applications open on April 20th**. ​ **Agenda** 1️⃣ Program Overview, Interview Insights and Internship Stories - 4 p.m. - 5 p.m. 2️⃣ Q&A & Networking - 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. ​**Our Speakers** **Valentina Petrova** \- Junior Software Engineer\, former 2025 Intern **Diana Evtimova** \- Junior Sales Representative\, former 2025 Intern **Tsvetilin Tsvetilov** \- Junior Software Engineer\, former 2024 Intern **Zhuliyan Penkov** \- Software Engineer\, former 2023 Intern ​ **Who Should Attend** Business and technical students who are curious about what a real internship looks like and want to hear it straight from people who've lived it. **To avoid duplicate registrations across platforms, we’re collecting all requests [here](https://luma.com/avn6uve7) (Request to join).** ​We look forward to seeing you there! 👋

✨ Ела на вечер, в която изключваме телефоните и се включваме в реалността. ❗️Още на входа ги прибираме на сигурно място - за да ти подарим качествено време тук и сега. Очакват те три часа спокойствие и смислена споделеност - без дигитален шум, без бързане, без екрани. 🌿 Програмата: ✨Регистрация: 20:00 - 20:20 (Пристигащите оставят телефоните си на сигурно място под наш надзор, регистрират се и се потапят в офлайн атмосферата) ✨Уединение: 20:20 - 21:10 Време само за теб. Без разговори, без уведомления - само тишина и присъствие. Можеш да си вземеш книга, дневник, скицник или нещо, което все отлагаш за „когато имаш време“. Ще има и подготвени материали, които да вдъхновят уединението ти. ✨Споделеност: 21:10 – 22:40 Истински разговори с истински хора. В малки групи, с подбрани въпроси, които отключват автентични диалози - без маски, без напрежение. Просто човешко присъствие и смислено общуване. ✨Свобода: 22:40 – 23:30 Оставаш колкото ти е приятно. Можеш да продължиш разговорите, да споделиш впечатления, да обмениш контакти (на хартия 😉) или просто да се насладиш на спокойствието. ⚠️ВАЖНО Билети се закупуват само онлайн предварително. Ако разполагате с подаръчен ваучер, моля пишете ни за да ви запазим място. Местата са ограничени. Моля, носете си пари в брой или физическа карта, за да можете, ако искате, да си купувате неща на място, когато телефоните ви не са у вас. 📍 Място: Bar Singles (НДК) 💛 15 EUR (в цената са включени подбрани вкусотии от нашия разкошен партньор Хармоника) 🎟️ Регистрация (задължителна): в Luma (https://luma.com/sg4iafsx) 📅 Дата: 23.04.2026 🕖 Начало: 20:00ч. (събиране до 20:20) Доведи приятел или ела сам - най-хубавите вечери се случват офлайн. ✨ #TheOfflineSociety #SpringEdition #OfflineIsTheNewLuxury

**Founders Running Club** (FRC) brings founders, investors, tech, creative people and startup enthusiasts together for weekly easy runs and networking. We like to be comfortable when we run and finish with coffee and conversations. Choose your pace or follow a pacer—pets, friends, family, are welcome. 🗓️ Launched in San Francisco, July 16, 2022 🌍 Now in 35+ cities 📅 Running + Networking events + Community **Join the community** [http://foundersrc.com/chats](http://foundersrc.com/chats) **Stay updated**: Instagram [http://instagram.com/foundersrc/](http://instagram.com/foundersrc/) Podcast [http://podcast.foundersrc.com/](http://podcast.foundersrc.com/) LinkedIn [http://linkedin.com/company/foundersrc/](http://linkedin.com/company/foundersrc/) Strava [http://strava.com/clubs/foundersRC](http://strava.com/clubs/foundersRC) Website [http://foundersrc.com/](http://foundersrc.com/)

​**🚀 FinOps Bulgaria Meetup #1 - FinOps in a Multi-Cloud AI World** ​Join us for the inaugural FinOps Bulgaria community meetup! Whether you're a FinOps practitioner, cloud architect, finance leader, or just curious about cloud cost optimisation, this is your chance to connect with peers and learn practical strategies. **!!! Reserve your seat** \- https://luma\.com/arwwaj1h ​**📅 Agenda:** ​**18:45** - **Doors Open & Registration** ​**19:00** - **Building the FinOps Community in Bulgaria** (\~15 min) Speakers: Ivaylo Vrabchev, Yordan Dabov ​**19:20** - **FinOps in a Multi-Cloud AI World: How to Control Costs When Value Lives Across Azure, Google Cloud and AWS** (\~30 min) Speaker: Yordan Dabov ​**20:00** - **Open Discussion** Speakers: all ​**What to Expect:** ​**🎯 Building the FinOps Community in Bulgaria** (15 min) Ivaylo Vrabchev and Yordan Dabov will share the vision behind FinOps Bulgaria and why now is the perfect time to build this community together. ​**☁️ FinOps in a Multi-Cloud AI World** (30 min) Speaker: Yordan Dabov will dive into the real challenges of controlling costs when your AI workloads span Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS. Learn practical approaches to visibility, allocation, and optimisation across multiple cloud providers. ​**🤝 Open Discussion** Let's talk about what matters to YOU and connect with fellow practitioners, share experiences, and build relationships over drinks and snacks: * ​What are your biggest FinOps challenges? * ​How does cost optimisation work in your company? * ​What dashboards and tools are you using ​**Who Should Attend:** * ​FinOps practitioners and cloud cost managers * ​DevOps and Platform engineers * ​CTOs, CFOs, and technical leaders * ​Anyone interested in Cloud & AI cost optimisation ​**Language:** The event will be conducted mainly in Bulgarian with some English here and there. ​**What to Bring:** Your questions, your challenges, and your curiosity! ​Looking forward to seeing you there! 🇧🇬

* **About the event:** **Continuous Product Discovery & Targeted User Research** Building successful products requires talking to your users, but *how* and *when* you talk to them makes all the difference. Continuous discovery is your 15-minute product "health check." It does not replace proper feature-based user research, it complements it. Join us for a practical meetup where we will break down exactly when to use continuous discovery versus targeted user research, and how the two approaches work together to drive product strategy. We will share actionable frameworks for catching high-level UX feedback, validating direction, and knowing exactly when to transition into deep, area-specific research. **What We’ll Cover:** * **The Core Framework:** Understand the difference between a 15-minute continuous discovery session (a high-level health check) and targeted, feature-based research. Learn when to use which approach and how to prevent your discovery calls from turning into support tickets or therapy sessions. * **Smart Recruitment & Triage:** Stop relying on the loudest customers. Learn how to use Amplitude data, Account Managers, and Community channels to reach your *core* users. We will show you how to use discovery sessions to build a repository of "awesome users" triaged for later, deep-dive research. * **Interviewing Best Practices:** We will share real-life anecdotes on how to ask situational questions rather than leading questions like "would you use this feature?" * **Scaling with Automation & AI:** Learn how to automate your feedback sessions and leverage AI to synthesize notes, spot 80/20 pain points, and write up interview patterns. **Who Should Attend:** Product Managers, UX Researchers, Product Marketers, and Designers who want to optimize their user feedback loops. * **About the speakers:** Krassi is a Senior Product Manager at LucidLink, where she focuses on identity, access, and permissions. Before LucidLink, she spent nearly 8 years at Sitecore, leading product initiatives across identity, developer platforms, and Marketplace, with a strong focus on developer and user experience. She’s particularly passionate about user experience through continuous product discovery - running customer interviews, uncovering real needs, and turning insights into products that solve meaningful problems. Igor is a Senior Staff Product Designer at LucidLink, focused on solving the right problems. Over 20 years of design experience have shaped his belief that listening to customers, separating signal from noise, identifying the pain points that matter most, and addressing them in a timely manner is what helps any company grow and stay ahead. * **About LucidLink:** LucidLink is the storage collaboration platform that frees creative teams to work together from anywhere. With a single shared filespace protected by zero-knowledge encryption, your team can instantly and securely access, edit and share projects of any size. Combining the ease of a local drive with the power of the cloud, LucidLink gives you on-demand access to your files. Now you can get straight to work without downloading, syncing or versioning disasters. Just like its customers, LucidLink's teams work together from anywhere. Privately held and headquartered in San Francisco, California, with an office in Sofia, Bulgaria, LucidLink's hybrid and remote employees work across Europe, North America, and Australia. Discover more at [www.lucidlink.com](http://www.lucidlink.com) **Come join the conversation!** 6:30 PM – Pre-event networking 7:00 PM – Official start

​At Progress, interns don't just shadow or observe. They own tasks, contribute to real projects and work alongside experienced teams from day one. 🚀 In this event with ***four former Progress interns***, the conversation will focus on what the experience actually looks like from the inside: 👉 What it means to do real work and make a tangible impact from early on 👉 How interns are trusted with their own responsibilities and what that feels like 👉 The mentorship and ongoing support that helps you grow with confidence 👉 How teams welcome interns and make them feel like they truly belong You'll also hear how the internship program is structured, what the recruitment process looks like and a few tips to help you put your best foot forward in interviews. This year Progress offers **13 internship opportunities** across a wide range of functions - Software Engineering, Product Management, Sales, Marketing, Business Operations and IT Security & Compliance, making this event relevant whether you're studying a technical or business discipline. **Applications open on April 20th**. ​ **Agenda** 1️⃣ Program Overview, Interview Insights and Internship Stories - 4 p.m. - 5 p.m. 2️⃣ Q&A & Networking - 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. ​**Our Speakers** **Valentina Petrova** \- Junior Software Engineer\, former 2025 Intern **Diana Evtimova** \- Junior Sales Representative\, former 2025 Intern **Tsvetilin Tsvetilov** \- Junior Software Engineer\, former 2024 Intern **Zhuliyan Penkov** \- Software Engineer\, former 2023 Intern ​ **Who Should Attend** Business and technical students who are curious about what a real internship looks like and want to hear it straight from people who've lived it. **To avoid duplicate registrations across platforms, we’re collecting all requests [here](https://luma.com/avn6uve7) (Request to join).** ​We look forward to seeing you there! 👋

Welcome, readers! Our April read is **_Martyr!_ by Kaveh Akbar.** The story follows a young Iranian American poet grappling with grief, addiction, and the aching question of what makes a life meaningful. Drawn into an unexpected friendship with a terminally ill artist, he begins to confront faith, love, and the seduction of self-destruction. Lyrical, darkly funny, and emotionally piercing, the novel wrestles with beauty and despair in equal measure. It’s a story about longing—to be seen, to be forgiven, and to matter. Looking forward to discussing with everyone! We will meet at Zaftig Brewing Co in their event room in the back. We are welcome to bring in our own food, but **drinks must be purchased at the bar.** Happy reading! 📖

Posting this early because seemingly all Sundays in May are holidays or busy! I picked a shorter thriller that's hopefully a fast read/listen. [Columbus library link to book](https://cml.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S105C3458940) Location: Grandview Cafe, *1455 W. 3rd Ave*, Columbus, OH 43212 [Menu](https://www.grandviewcafe.com/menu) Book summary: Daniel leads a rich life in the university town of Athens, Georgia. He's got a couple close friends, a steady paycheck working for a regional airline, and of course, for a few glorious days each Fall, college football tailgates. He considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy -- despite the fact that he's suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair. Largely confined to his home, Daniel spends the hours he's not online communicating with irate air travelers observing his neighborhood from his front porch. One young woman passes by so frequently that spotting her out the window has almost become part of his daily routine. Until the day he's almost sure he sees her being kidnapped.

Join us for our April Book Club gathering where we will come together to discuss *[Stop Me if You've Heard This One](https://www.kristenarnettwriter.com/stopmeifyouveheardthisone)* by [Kristen Arnett](https://www.kristenarnettwriter.com/about) in a safe and welcoming environment. Make new friends who share your passion for books and connect with fellow LGBTQ book enthusiasts.

Let’s meet and share our thoughts about Carson McCullers’ novella, The Ballad of The Sad Café.

This month we’ll be reading Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. Feel free to come even if you don’t finish the book!

Love getting lost in a good book? [The Book Loft](https://www.bookloft.com/) of German Village is an iconic independent bookstore packed with hard-to-find literary treasures! This isn’t your run-of-the-mill bookstore; it’s a 32-room literary wonderland that would make even the most seasoned bibliophile’s head spin (one of the largest in the country)! **MEET**: We'll gather outside the storefront and then start browsing... **DESSERT**: We'll grab some famous macaroons to start our foodie tour. [Pistacia Vera](https://www.pistaciavera.com/) is a delicious bakery and cafe in the German Village. This charming shop is especially known for its classic macarons. **LATE LUNCH:** *After we browse the bookstore maze, let's gather for the best traditional Jewish deli in town, [Katzingers!](katzingers.com) Choices include stacked Reubens, hot pastromi on rye, chicken salad, macaroni salad, knish, chicken soup, NY cheesecake, and dozens of other sandwiches and sides!* **PARKING**: Street parking all around here. Check the parking time limit. The bookstore and the foodie stops are all on 3rd Street within 4 blocks on the same side of the street.