Smart Home

Every Tuesday at 5pm! RSVP at the following link to receive login details: https://www.enggarcia.com/hbstuesday/ * The Districts Best first time home buyer webinar * Learn about the home buying process * How to qualify & what loans are available * Qualifying for DC Open Doors and other programs * Reduced down payment and closing cost opportunities We're looking forward to seeing you soon!

Welcome to our new home at the historic Tivoli Theater! Please check our details for access to the space on [our website](https://www.hacdc.org/visit/). Join the discord for questions / help getting in (use channel #let-me-in) [https://discord.gg/dNjuNhNmeT](https://discord.gg/dNjuNhNmeT)

We’re excited to continue building AI in Practice with our monthly social! 🎉 Each month, we’ll host an informal happy hour and dinner at Upside on Moore in Rosslyn. Come join fellow AI builders, professionals, and curious minds for a relaxed evening of conversation, connection, and community. Whether you’re working on AI systems, advising on responsible adoption, or just interested in how AI is shaping law, compliance, finance, healthcare, defense, software, mission-driven organizations, or public service — this is a chance to meet like-minded people and help shape what this community becomes. 🍸 Drinks and food are available for purchase at the venue. 🤝 No formal agenda — just introductions, networking, and sharing what excites us about AI in practice. We’re so grateful for the early enthusiasm, and we look forward to seeing you each month as this community grows! **Date, Time & Location** 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM Thursday 23 October 2025 Upside on Moore 1831 Moore Street Arlington, VA 22209

How Blockchain Responsibly Contributes to Secure, Transparent, and Trustworthy Elections GBA Emerging GovTech Livestream Series - Kicking Off 2026 with Critical Conversation on using Blockchain in Voting & Elections Government Blockchain Association Voting Working Group Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 12:00 Noon - 1:00 PM (New York Time) Event link https://youtube.com/@GBAorg/streams Registration https://lnkd.in/e5F2HBrC GBA Emerging GovTech Livestream will discuss... Ensuring every vote is counted and verified Technical and procedural standards needed to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse Responsibly integrate blockchain - not as a replacement, but as a trusted security layer within existing election systems Provide auditability & legal integrity - real-time transparency for observers, without compromising ballot secrecy Provide identity & access management, spanning both physical and digital security Handle hybrid & provisional voting models, including inclusive access (e.g., multilingual closed captions) Provide clear governance: focusing on who is eligible to vote - and eligibility verification Develop standard protocols for blockchain solutions across jurisdictions Panelists Amelia Powers Gardner’s, Government Innovation Leader - Disruptive Technology Advocate - Public Official - Consultant - Speaker - Technology Implementation Expert - Mother - Entrepreneur - Mentor for High Performance Women Eugene Morozov, CPA, MS - CEO, DeVote & author of 2026 Public DLT and Blockchain Governance & Implementation Playbook, WEB3 Evangelist • Domain Expert • Investor • Entrepreneur Passionate about driving innovation in blockchain, digital assets, decentralized applications (dApps), and governance systems (DAO). Linda Hutchinson Director of Quality Assurance & Certification, Voatz Moderated by Felisha Stevenson Business Developer & Investor GBA Voting Working Group.. How Blockchain Responsibly Contributes to Secure, Transparent, and Trustworthy Elections Event link https://youtube.com/@GBAorg/streams Registration https://lnkd.in/e5F2HBrC GBA Emerging GovTech Livestream Series - Sponsored by CESS Network CESS Network supports open scalable and decentralized infrastructure that empowers next-generation public-sector innovation. About GBA The Government Blockchain Association (GBA) is a nonprofit (501c6) organization committed to advancing blockchain technology standards, facilitating industry education, and ensuring a trusted, secure ecosystem for blockchain solutions. For more information, visit https://gbaglobal.org/. For more information contact Bob Miko, bmiko@pacificdialogue.com 203 378 2803. Bob Miko GBA Director of Public Relations Editor in Chief/Producer Pacific Dialogue 203 378 2803 bmiko@pacificdialogue.com

**Agenda :** * 4.30 to 4.45 PM ET: Food and Networking * 4.45 to 5.30 PM ET: "Building Smarter Agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio (Jan 2026 Edition)" Hello Everyone! Please join us for our Jan 13th edition of the AI-ML MeetUp. **Please note this is an in-person meeting and light refreshments/food will be provided.** **Title:** Building Smarter Agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio (Jan 2026 Edition) **Description:** Discover how to design intelligent, task-driven AI agents using **Microsoft Copilot Studio**. Learn how to connect copilots to enterprise data, workflows, and external systems. Explore real-world use cases, best practices, and architecture patterns for scalable agents. Get hands-on insights into what’s new in the Jan 2026 edition and what’s coming next **Location:** The meeting will be hosted in the Applied Information Sciences ( AIS ) office in Reston, at 11440 Commerce Park Dr # 600 · Reston, VA. The location is also right off the Silver Line metro's Wiehle-Reston Metro Station. **Parking:** Parking is paid and can be validated at the AIS office reception. We will meet in Room Lake Anne. We hope to see you all there!!!!

learn more about the HPAP Down Payment Assistance Program \- Get up to $202\,000 in funds from the House Assistance Purchase Program \- Learn what the funds can go towards and the timeline to get approved \- Understand how to sign up for HPAP orientation \- Learn the benefits and challenges of HPAP in detail \- Discuss the current market conditions for HPAP buyers\.

Learn more about our Home Buyer Program * get up to $202k in down payment assistance through HPAP * get up to $25K in grants from Maryland Mortgage Program * downpayment assistance options through DC Open Doors * how to qualify and what loans are available * loan application and approval process * repeat home buyer options * purchase price limits * market insight and home buying steps in a competitive market SIGN UP AT THE LINK BELOW: [https://www.enggarcia.com/egpwebinars/](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.enggarcia.com/egpwebinars/&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1705256818169980&usg=AOvVaw0qgqMgQjduPHADDDggU6H6)

Every Saturday at 11am! RSVP at the following link to receive login details: https://www.enggarcia.com/hbscaphill/ The Districts Best first time home buyer webinar Learn about the home buying process How to qualify & what loans are available Qualifying for DC Open Doors and other programs Reduced down payment and closing cost opportunities We're looking forward to seeing you soon!

Want to mess with some electronics? Or perhaps contribute to HacDC's main group project? HacDC's latest event brings hardware projects to the community. We will focus primarily on the main project (Space Blimp!) but please feel free to bring some of your own projects to show off and work on!

Join us for an evening of cutting-edge discussion at the intersection of **AI and Python**, featuring lightning talks from leading practitioners who are building the future of intelligent systems and developer tooling. **REGISTER at the Py AI event page on Luma: [https://luma.com/w08cv6px](https://luma.com/w08cv6px)​​** **Schedule** * ​​5PM - 5:30PM: Pizza & Drinks * ​​5:30PM - 6:30PM: Talks from our speakers * ​Jeremiah Lowin - Founder & CEO, Prefect * ​Roni Kobrosly - Director of Data Science, Capital One * ​Adam Azzam - FastMCP * ​Banjo Obayomi - GenAI DC * ​​6:30PM - 8:00PM: Networking & Social Hour ​​Following the talks, stay for open discussion and networking with fellow Python and AI engineers. Whether you’re building AI-driven applications, exploring new frameworks, or working on developer productivity tools, this meetup offers practical insight from the teams defining the modern AI ecosystem. **REGISTER at the Py AI event page on Luma: [https://luma.com/w08cv6px](https://luma.com/w08cv6px)​​**

Step away from the constant buzz of notifications and into a space of stillness, clarity, and inner connection. In this immersive, in-person session, you’ll explore the spiritual art of digital detox—reclaiming your attention, deepening presence, and nurturing your soul’s well-being. Through guided meditation, mindful reflection, and interactive group activities, you’ll learn how to create healthy boundaries with technology and rediscover the simple joys of being fully present. Leave feeling lighter, recharged, and inspired to live with intention—online and offline. Saturday, Jan. 17th 1:00pm – 2:30pm. Held at the Meditation Museum, 9525 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, MD. Free Event.

**Happy New Year, GeoDC! We’re kicking off 2026 on Wednesday, January 14th, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Sudhouse DC (1340 U St NW).** **The program begins at 7:00 PM, but you’ll want to arrive early—our sponsor for the evening, Earth Genome, is providing limited appetizers and drinks for the community! Sudhouse also runs its regular happy hour until 8:00 PM. Please RSVP on the GeoDC Meetup page to help us coordinate the catering.** **This Month's Sponsor: Earth Genome** **A huge thank you to Earth Genome for making this month possible. Earth Genome is a nonprofit at the intersection of AI and environmental data, building the tools needed to monitor our planet’s health in real-time. We are excited to have their team on the ground to show us exactly how they are turning satellite pixels into climate action.** **Speaker Lineup** **Ben Strong, Earth Genome Talk: Earth Index and the New Frontier of GenAI Mikel will lead a live demo of the Earth Index platform, a "search engine for the planet" that uses geospatial foundation models to find environmental patterns globally. He’ll also be giving us a first look at some very beta GenAI features that allow users to query the planet using natural language.** **Dan McCarey, Earth Genome Talk: Visualizing the Invisible: Building Climate TRACE Plumes Dan will walk us through the build process of the Climate TRACE plumes visualization. This tool maps the real-time flow of air pollution from over 9,000 industrial sources into urban areas. He’ll discuss the technical architecture behind the project—combining atmospheric modeling with facility-level emissions data—and how it serves as a call to action for environmental justice.** **We’ll have our usual rapid-fire community updates before the demos. If you're hiring or looking for work in the DMV geospatial scene, this is your chance to grab the mic!** **See you all next Wednesday!** **The GeoDC Organizing Committee** **Chad, Tom, Dan, Puneet**

Join us for an evening of cutting-edge discussion at the intersection of **AI and Python**, featuring lightning talks from leading practitioners who are building the future of intelligent systems and developer tooling. **REGISTER at the Py AI event page on Luma: https://luma.com/w08cv6px​​** **Schedule** * ​​5PM - 5:30PM: Pizza & Drinks * ​​5:30PM - 6:30PM: Talks from our speakers * ​Jeremiah Lowin - Founder & CEO, Prefect * ​Roni Kobrosly - Director of Data Science, Capital One * ​Adam Azzam - FastMCP * ​Banjo Obayomi - Sr. Solutions Architect GenAI, AWS * ​...and more! * ​​6:30PM - 8:00PM: Networking & Social Hour ​​Following the talks, stay for open discussion and networking with fellow Python and AI engineers. Whether you’re building AI-driven applications, exploring new frameworks, or working on developer productivity tools, this meetup offers practical insight from the teams defining the modern AI ecosystem. **REGISTER at the Py AI event page on Luma: https://luma.com/w08cv6px​​**

Bring your Raspberry Pi, Arduino, microcontroller, or any other electronic project and join fellow electronics makers for a night of creativity and collaboration! This session is open forum to share your current projects—whether complete or in progress, it’s all interesting! Whether you’re deep into embedded systems, exploring new ideas, or just getting started, you’ll find a welcoming space to collaborate, share, and get inspired. I've been hardware hacking a See N Say to make it say whatever I want - while the project is in progress still, it should be working by this meetup! I'll bring it for demo. [See N Say Project](https://github.com/cdeever/esp32-see-n-say) While we continue to pursue a more permanent venue for this Meetup, we’ll be using public library facilities based on availability. This session will be at the Worthington Park Library in the Olentangy Meeting Room.

2026 may be the last year many developers write code by hand. We need coding agents to solve complex problems in production codebases, but vibe coding alone won’t get us there. Vibe coding is all gas, no brakes. It burns up the context window until the agent slips on its own slop. You can go fast at first, but the more you stuff into the context window, the more tangled its outputs get. While the industry is rapidly increasing code generation speed, we still have to understand, review, merge, and maintain what gets shipped. This talk featuring Michael Geiger will outline how coding agents (Claude Code + Gas Town) work and a framework for orchestrating them to solve complicated problems in complex codebases. It’s about steering the model: doing the research to align intent, planning the approach up front, implementing in parallel steps, and breaking early. Human judgment still matters, but it should be spent on high-leverage decisions: what to build, what to forbid, and “what is quality?”, not cleaning up slop. Attendees will leave with a checklist to identify workflow and environment gaps that hold agents back, so you and your team can ship higher-quality software starting tomorrow.

***FREE TOUR TICKET FOR ALL OF YOU WONDERFUL MEETUP MEMBERS*** Use Promo Code **MEETUP2025** to get your free ticket and route smart guide at [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sol-in-columbus-oh-a-smart-guided-short-one-way-loop-bikeway-tour-tickets-769120860197](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sol-in-columbus-oh-a-smart-guided-short-one-way-loop-bikeway-tour-tickets-769120860197) You can do the tour solo/with your favorite peeps, or try to generate a group ride of Meetup CycleNuts by RSVPing here and posting the day and time you are interested in others joining you. Either way, have fun on your memory-making adventure, and thank you for being a CycleNut! ### SOL in Columbus, OH \- A Smart\-guided Short One\-way Loop Bikeway Tour Short One-way Loop (SOL) in Columbus on bikeways. The smart-guided tour is mostly through scenic riverside parks with a quick downtown peek. All of that in 10 miles! 83% of the route is bikeway, and the rest is Google Maps designated "bicycle-friendly roads". This short ride passes through several beautiful riverside parks. Passing through downtown the route runs alongside Huntington Park baseball stadium, Nationwide Arena hockey stadium, near North Market (worth a stop if you enjoy markets with lots of tasty treats), within a few blocks of the state capitol, convention center, art museum, center of science and industry, several first-class hotels, and much more (see Points of Interest list below). Easily, anywhere along the way, the tour can be detoured to nearby points of interest. This smart-guided route comes with CycleNuts' 50% downhill guarantee. Sweating is optional. If your bike has gears, you might use them to climb in a few spots. All bikes are appropriate for this smart-guided tour (even a single-speed if you do not mind walking your bike up the spots mentioned). The route is shaded about 50% of the way. Sweating is optional - you set your pace, starting time, and touring agenda. Points of interest: COSI Scioto River North Market German Village The Scioto Mile Brewery District Huntington Park Nationwide Arena Columbus Union Station Arch Greater Columbus Convention Center **The Meetup plan = Show up, Rally with whoever else shows up, and Roll following the smart-guided instructions.** This is a smart guided tour route that can be ridden any day or time, solo or with others. It is only posted with a repeating set time and date with a tour leader to fit the Meetup format, and, more importantly, to encourage you to get out and ride when it is convenient for you. **If you are going to ride it and would like the company of others, then simply RSVP and post in the comments when it is that you are going to ride - date and time.** Take pictures/videos and share. Have fun! ***This is a repeating event on the calendar***\*, but the date and time do not necessarily need to be what is posted. **If you are interested in riding with a group, then simply RSVP and leave a message in the comment section** giving the date and time you would like others to join you. If you are interested in riding by yourself or with your private group of friends, then simply do it.\* ***The mission of this format is to create a catalog*** *of free group tour routes available for CycleNuts to ride as a group, or solo, in an area spanning several states. **The goal is to get people out cycling** either in groups or solo. **The vision is a cycling community with resources** available for bike tours, bike talk, and a format for lives experienced at the speed of bike.*

**Important time note:** Please plan on arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 as the elevators lock after 6 and you'll need to message us and we'll need to come get you. The building address is 4450 Bridge Park The entrance is 6620 Mooney St, Suite 400 **Abstract** GitHub Copilot is rapidly changing how developers write, understand, and maintain code. Powered by generative AI and deeply integrated into modern development environments, Copilot acts as an intelligent coding assistant, helping developers move faster while maintaining quality and focus. In this session, we’ll explore what GitHub Copilot is, how it works, and where it fits into a real-world developer workflow. We’ll break down what Copilot can (and cannot) do, where it can be used, and how licensing differs for individuals and organizations. Most importantly, this talk goes beyond theory with a live, hands-on demo showcasing Copilot inside the IDE and on GitHub, demonstrating how it can assist with code generation, refactoring, learning new APIs, and accelerating day-to-day development tasks. Designed for developers, technical leads, and engineering managers, this session provides a practical introduction to AI-assisted development, highlights best practices for getting value from Copilot, and closes with guidance on how to continue learning and evolving alongside this rapidly advancing tool. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how GitHub Copilot can enhance productivity, improve developer experience, and fit into modern software teams today, not someday. **YouTube Link** TBA

Happy New Year, all! I hope it is a great one for all of us. Let's welcome 2026 together! Our next much-awaited **COLUMBUS** meetup is **Tuesday January 20** **from 7-10 pm at ACE OF CUPS**. Meet patients, cultivators, processors, dispensary managers/staff, physicians, home growers, educators, activists, nonprofits, artists, attorneys, business owners, writers, students, and supporters to network, share our knowledge, collaborate, support each other and make new friends! Hope you can join us! Save the date and pass the word. **Please RSVP** so we know who is coming and how many to expect. Find us to say hi and we will introduce you to others. We should be easy to spot. (The happy-looking group wearing cool nametags! See photos from our past events.) Sign in, grab a name tag, start your own bar/food tab, meet old friends and make new ones! Everyone is welcome. SEE YOU THERE!

## Learn Infrastructure-as-Code (the FUN Way) — Through Minecraft 🎮☁️ **Joint Meetup: Azure CBUS × Columbus HashiCorp User Group × DevOps Columbus** What if learning Terraform and Infrastructure-as-Code didn’t feel like a whitepaper… but more like a game? Join us for a joint Azure CBUS, Columbus HashiCorp User Group, and DevOps Columbus meetup where **Mark Tinderholt** \(Principal Architect\, Microsoft Azure \| HashiCorp Ambassador \| “The Azure Terraformer”\) shows how **Minecraft** can be used as a surprisingly powerful way to understand real-world Infrastructure-as-Code concepts. In this session, Mark will demonstrate how Terraform and Azure can be used to provision, configure, and manage Minecraft servers—while teaching the same patterns you’d use for production cloud infrastructure. ### What we’ll cover * Infrastructure-as-Code fundamentals using **Terraform** * Provisioning real infrastructure on **Azure** * Applying **IaC best practices** (immutability, repeatability, versioning) * How playful environments like Minecraft make complex concepts *click* * Why learning through experimentation beats click-ops every time ### Who should attend * Developers, platform engineers, and cloud engineers * Terraform users (new or experienced) * Anyone curious about Infrastructure-as-Code but tired of boring examples * Minecraft fans who want to see it used in a totally unexpected way No prior Minecraft experience required—just curiosity and a willingness to learn infrastructure the fun way. Come for the blocks, stay for the Terraform. 🧱➡️📐 Want to be a speaker? submit your talk to our Call for Presenters!!! https://sessionize.com/azure-cbus-2026/