Usability

Come to check out our hackerspace, talk to people and learn some new things, maybe use the tools for a short while, or just sit down with a laptop and do some work in a quiet place. Also a good time to sign up for a membership! We will have tea and coffee, likely also cookies. Come whenever from 19:00 till 22:00 - we might even be open until 24:00! If there's a problem (i.e. doors not open), call 28701072.

Open Coffee Riga is a friendly informal networking event for entrepreneurs, professionals, locals, guests, people in the startup community, and students in Riga. Open Coffee Riga is an “un-meeting” without a speaker or agenda. We are focused on attendees gaining value from other attendees. The rules, tools, structure and moderation aim to facilitate this goal. You may find a mentor, investor, client, co founder, employer, vendor, inspiration or a friend. What is the BIG idea behind Open Coffee? We want to help people create valuable & meaningful connections. Everyone is welcome to our meetings, and we especially love first-timers. We want to make sure that if somebody coming from an unsupportive background/country has the courage to join, they will notice that we are glad they came because we welcome them. If you feel shy, you can also just listen but we encourage you to talk. We start at 19:00 sharp. Everybody gets up to 2 minutes to present: 1. Who they are and what they are doing 2. What they want 3. How they can help others At 20:00 sharp we stop hosting and you can talk to people who are most interesting to you. We are focused on business and social entrepreneurs, community builders, game-changers, earth-shakers and anyone else who is doing something interesting or wants to get involved in other people's projects. You can talk about any project/topic. This event is based on the Open Coffee Krakow format, run by Richard Lucas and others in Krakow, Poland since 2012. The Open Coffee Riga is a revival of the Open Coffee Riga from 2011 (!) where it evolved into TechHub Riga & that evolved into StartupHouse Riga. If you are interested in knowing more about the Open Coffee format, take a look at our video for potential leaders [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z99E2z8anFU). Open Coffee format events are organised world-wide in Krakow, Lisbon, Porto, Tokyo, Sydney & many more places.

Speed ​​friending is an event where, on a signal, people switch tables. You'll have five minutes to get a feel for the person and decide whether you're open to meeting them again. Speed ​​friending is perfect for those looking to find an interesting conversational partner or partner in one evening. It's a great option for those with busy schedules, newcomers to the city, introverts, and those looking for new contacts. Dozens of people from various professions will gather in one location: from IT professionals to miniature Pekingese breeders. Who knows how this might come in handy in the future? **free** event . . Speed friending (ātrās iepazīšanās) ir pasākums, kurā pēc signāla sarunu biedri maina galdus. Jums būs piecas minūtes, lai izjustu cilvēka atmosfēru un sapratu, vai esat gatavi sazināties nākotnē. Ātrās iepazīšanās der tiem, kas vienā vakarā vēlas atrast interesantu sarunu biedru vai partneri. Lieliska iespēja cilvēkiem ar blīvu grafiku, pilsētas jaunpienācējiem, intrvertiem un tiem, kas meklē jaunus kontaktus. Vienā vietā pulcēsies desmitiem cilvēku no dažādām profesijām: no IT speciālistiem līdz pekinēzu audzētājiem. Kas zina, kā tas var noderēt nākotnē? **bezmaksas** pasākums

Join our sporty group for fun workout run in Riga! 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️ **What can you expect:** During the route (\~4km) there will be 6 locations with 2-3 exercises. It’s not a race. We are moving together as a group and everyone can choose their own challenging level (or rest instead of the exercise). The purpose is to have fun and engaging physical activity. **When and where:** We’ll start on Tuesday (12th of May) at 16:30 in front of the barricades on the Zakusala island. After the run, we can go for a drink and more chit-chat. 🍻 We will be happy to see you with us!

Wednesday is karaoke day. Every Wednesday we gather to sing. Come with a friend or alone, with or without a voice. The format is simple: show up, grab a microphone, and sing whatever you want. Or don't sing, just support others. As usual, the meeting place is Top Club. If you haven't been before, you can get to know the space at the same time. We're looking forward to seeing you this Wednesday. See you there! Trešdiena ir karaoke diena. Katru trešdienu mēs pulcējamies dziedāt. Nāc ar draugu vai viens, ar balsi vai bez. Formāts ir vienkāršs: nāc, paņem mikrofonu un dziedi, ko vien vēlies. Vai arī nedzied, vienkārši atbalsti citus. Kā parasti, tikšanās vieta ir Top klubs. Ja iepriekš neesi tur bijis, vari vienlaikus iepazīties ar vietu. Gaidīsim ciemos šajā trešdienā. Tiekamies tur!

Every Thursday we go to play Bingo at the Top club. We enjoy the evening, test our luck. Sometimes we also get gifts. Come play with us. Let's have a drink and talk together. **free** event . . Katru ceturtdienu mēs ejam spēlēt Bingo klubā Top. Izbaudām vakaru, pārbaudām savu veiksmi. Dažreiz mēs arī saņemam dāvanas. Nāc spēlēt ar mums. Kopā iedzersim un parunāsim. **bezmaksas** pasākums

Come join us for a BBQ in Lucavsala's Grilpark. Bring your own food and drinks ☺️

Customer identity resolution becomes increasingly complex as organizations scale across multiple systems, regions, and data formats. Traditional rule-based approaches often fail to keep up with data variability, require constant manual tuning, and struggle with real-time processing needs. This session presents a practical approach to building a scalable identity resolution pipeline using AWS services and modern AI techniques. The architecture combines data ingestion through Amazon S3 and AWS Glue, transformation pipelines using Spark on EMR, and machine learning models deployed via SageMaker for entity matching and standardization. Graph-based relationship modeling is implemented using Amazon Neptune to improve resolution accuracy by incorporating household and shared attribute context. We will walk through how machine learning models can be used for name and address normalization, how intelligent blocking strategies improve matching efficiency, and how feedback loops can be introduced to continuously improve accuracy. The session also highlights how serverless components such as AWS Lambda can be used for orchestration and real-time processing. **SPEAKER BIO** Mosaic Syed is a Senior Data Engineering and Cloud Solutions Architect with over 20 years of experience designing and delivering scalable, secure, and high-performance data solutions across global enterprise environments. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosaic-basha-syed-92300856 **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

Try new games, meet new people, and find out what story games are all about! Explore the reaches of space! Witness kingdoms rise and fall! Create and explore tragedies! All within a single game night. We play story games like Fiasco, Kingdom, Polaris and Microscope that encourage everyone at the table to participate creatively. We also have one-shots of indie, OSR, and narrative-focused RPGs such as Apocalypse World, Dread, Lady Blackbird, and Old School Essentials! Everybody's welcome! It doesn't matter if you've never tried story games before or never played roleplaying games at all! Just bring your brain and a good attitude and come try it out! *** **IMPORTANT** * When you arrive look for the marked Story Games Columbus Tables. Each table will have a separate game. Seating is on a first-come-first-serve basis. * If all tables are full, look for a Facilitator. We will find a way to get you into a game! * There is a flat $3 cover charge for events at Tabletop. *** **Facilitators!!** Please arrive early so that we can get you set up with a table. Please reach out to me ASAP if you would be willing to help facilitate. You can reach me on the SGC Discord here - https://discord.gg/jUTvWUu

Practical AI for Power BI Developers A year ago, “agentic AI” was mostly hype for Power BI teams. Today, it deserves your undivided attention. For Power BI pros, there is now a real opportunity to reduce repetitive development work, accelerate delivery, and help developers do more, but only when strong DataOps practices are in place to make AI workflows effective. This session is a no-nonsense introduction to effective AI patterns for Power BI and Fabric development. Along the way, we will make sense of the growing pile of terminology, including skills, plugins, hooks, and MCP. You will see examples of how modern AI tooling can help with development tasks across Power BI and Fabric, along with the prerequisites, guardrails, and DataOps principles needed to use it responsibly. Whether you're burned out on AI hype or already using Copilot CLI daily, this session will show you the foundations that are finally making AI-assisted development genuinely useful.

IMPORTANT!!! THE DATE OF THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CHANGED TO SUNDAY MAY 17, 2026!!! A very unusual choice for his group... Unknown Number: High School Catfish is an American [true crime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_crime "True crime") documentary film directed by [Skye Borgman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Borgman "Skye Borgman") and released to [streaming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media "Streaming media") on [Netflix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix "Netflix") on August 29, 2025. The documentary explores the events and investigation into an unknown person [cyberbully](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberbullying "Cyberbullying") and [harassing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment "Harassment") teenagers in [Beal City, Michigan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beal_City,_Michigan "Beal City, Michigan") using an unknown number via insults and sexual claims. It also explores the increasingly great impact of the harassment on the community, the eventual reveal of the culprit, and the trial that followed. IMPORTANT INFO: I strongly suggest not reading anything about it online before seeing it. It's best viewed with no previous knowledge. This documentary contains crude terminology and deals with cyberbullying, which may be a trigger for some folks. Please be ready to discuss the movie by 7PM. Thanks. Unfortunately, it is only available on Netflix. If you would like to attend but do not have Netflix, say so and maybe we can figure something out.

**Total Eclipse of the Chart: School Redistricting Dashboards** In this presentation, we will explore the utilization of maps, sets, and SQL within a Tableau dashboard to help provide “what-if” analyses generated through the use of a mapped dashboard, providing different scenarios and the potential implications of these. While in this use case we are focused on a large school district, the concepts of utilizing existing data to explore the future impacts of modifying different geographic boundaries can be useful to many industries, balancing the mix of maps with visual analytics. **About Our Speaker** Robert Kramer is the Data Systems and State Reporting Coordinator at South Western City Schools in Grove City. He has worked there for 17 years, serving previously in the roles of Data Analyst, Programmer, and Operations Coordinator. Prior to working at South Western, he worked as a Systems Engineer at Pinnacle Data Systems in Groveport. He graduated in 2005 from The University of Toledo with his Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Engineering, and a minor in Mathematics. Robert resides in Obetz with his wife, and their 15 and 12 year-old daughters. He was also just elected to his 3rd four-year term on the Obetz City Council. 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)

**Building a great product is one thing—building momentum behind it is another.** Join **Senior Product Manager Adam Solaiman** and **User Experience Manager Tyson Smith** for a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to turn complex ideas into scalable products inside large organizations. In this session, they’ll share how teams move from ambiguity to execution—navigating organizational complexity, aligning stakeholders, and continuously evolving products after launch. You’ll walk away with insights on how to: * Build and sustain momentum across teams * Adapt to changing priorities without losing direction * Scale products thoughtfully in complex environments Whether you're driving a new initiative or growing an existing product, this conversation will give you practical strategies to keep things moving forward. Come connect, learn, and swap stories with fellow product professionals. \-\-\- Food and drinks will be provided by Switchbox, our generous host. Free parking will be available at the front and back sides of the Switchbox Office.