Forward Fest Spokesperson, DevFestWI Moderator, New Roles

Looking forward to presenting at useR! - The R User Conference 2026 in Warsaw, Poland this Thursday! I'll be sharing how my work at Brooklyn College has used NYC Open Data to transform the way I teach reproducible research—moving beyond traditional "one-and-done" assignments and helping students create publicly available research, portfolios, and open-source contributions using R. I'm also excited to learn from the incredible R community, explore new ideas in reproducibility, package development, AI, and open data, and meet many of the people whose work I've followed (and whose packages I've used!) over the years. It's especially meaningful to be attending as part of the rOpenSci community following the acceptance of nycOpenData into the rOpenSci ecosystem earlier this year. If you'll be at useR!, I'd love to connect! #useR2026 #rstats #OpenScience #OpenData #DataScience #Reproducibility

It's official — the first AI.WOMEN Hackathon is happening September 12 & 13! 🩷 Two days to experiment, learn, and build alongside other women who are curious about AI — whether you've been working in the field for years or have never written a line of code. No pressure to have the best pitch or the cleanest solution. Just the joy of building something together! What to expect: 👩💻 Up to 300 women building with AI, working in teams of up to five 💡 Guidance from an all-female team of AI mentors, judged by an all-female jury 🏆 Awards and prizes celebrating the standout projects Thank you to Petra and Katharina for turning this idea into reality. Registration is now open - link in comments! ⬇️

Most people in the UK haven't heard of Skool. It's worth knowing about, because it's where a lot of the good small business learning has quietly moved. Here's what it actually is. Skool is one place that holds three things which normally live in three separate tools: a discussion feed, a course library, and your live calls. It all stays in one room, and you can find it again six months later. That last part matters more than it sounds. Think of every Facebook group where the answer you needed disappeared under 200 comments about something else. I've built the Northern AI Collective there. It's for women running businesses across the North of England. Consultants, agency owners, makers, and founders starting again after a career break. It's free to join. Here's what's in it right now: 🧪 Wins & Experiments. What other founders are testing this week, and what it saved them. 💬 Straight answers to the questions you'd hesitate to ask anywhere else. Nothing is too basic in here. 📍 First look at workshop dates across the North. Two things are coming. In August, Your First AI Win opens in the Classroom. Five short lessons, each under 20 minutes, built from the First Light workshops we run across the North. By the end you'll have one real task off your plate, something AI now does for you, set up properly and safely. Free for every member. Then Compass. It's a founding cohort: four live weekly sessions and a results round-table, with the same twelve women all the way through. That's where AI gets built into how your business actually runs. Enrolment opens in August, and the live dates run through September. Hana came to First Light in Leeds and joined the room afterwards. She said: "I was in the room and I must say Jitka was amazing, she knew exactly where all of us struggle. I learned so much my brain was buzzing. I also joined her Skool community, looking forward to seeing this amazing woman again." Harvard Business Review found women are 22% less likely than men to use AI. The right room closes that gap. This is the room. Join free now and you'll be in there when both open. #WomenInBusiness #FemaleFounders

This region is serious about helping businesses understand how, when, what, where, when and why AI can be implemented in their business. It’s not that you’re using AI, it’s about the why of using it that matters. Take advantage of this gift Lee County businesses.

☕ Second Alumni Meetup: AI in the Design Process In the second weeek of July, alumni from our Chair of Technical Design at TU Dresden gathered for our second virtual coffee meetup and what a mix of generations it was. With graduating classes spanning more than a decade, some participants met each other for the very first time a real testament to the community we're building across generations. This time, the conversation centered on AI in design practice: - Ingmar and Felix shared hands-on insights into the AI-based tools they use for conceptual design and visualization and how they've woven them into their day-to-day workflows. - Jens gave a glimpse into the development of a modular robotics platform, built by a hybrid team of AI-based and human collaborators. The discussion that followed ranged widely from practical tool capabilities to legal implications, and the bigger question of how much trust users and clients place in AI-(co-)created design solutions. Want to join next time? Our next meetup is planned for late 2026. Join our TD Alumni LinkedIn group to make sure you don't miss the invitation! #TUDresden #IndustrialDesign #TechnicalDesign #AIinDesign #DesignTools #Alumni #GenerativeAI #RoboticsDesign

Search engines and AI are often viewed as objective tools, but what happens when the systems behind them reflect and reinforce existing inequities? This summer, The Lighthouse invites you to join our virtual book club as we read Algorithms of Oppression by Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble. Together, we'll examine how digital technologies shape information, public perception and access while engaging in thoughtful conversations about technology, equity and the future we want to build. Facilitated by Lighthouse Public Scholar Dr. Charity Clay, this free virtual series is designed for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, justice and critical inquiry. Registration is free, but space is limited. We hope you'll join the conversation. https://lnkd.in/eHddJeAQ

I was in the room for this one at the Claude Code meetup in Nürnberg (somewhere in that crowd 😄). The part of Steffi's talk that stuck with me: everything she thinks of goes into one capture folder. No sorting, no naming, no deciding where it belongs. Claude Code reads the pile and files it for her. That's the same principle my agents are built on. I stopped asking "how do I do this faster" and started asking "which parts of this need me at all." The research, the cross-referencing, the filing: automated. The judgment stays with me. She keeps the decisions. The model keeps the remembering. 🤖 I've been meaning to set this up for my own project notes, and this talk might be the push. Watching for the Substack write-up. If you run a second brain with Claude Code, or tried one and abandoned it: what made it stick (or not)?

"𝐀 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐈." Seniors call Maurice & Nora 24/7 to book help, and often hold ten or fifteen minute conversations without knowing the voice on the other end is an AI agent. A year in, that platform is matching thousands of students with seniors across Belgium: 4,000+ students, 4,300+ private clients, a €1M pre-seed round, and a guaranteed match within the hour in 95% of cases. Facing a €100k agency quote, Thomas Butstraen built his first product on Lovable with no engineering background. That prototype, pitched at a Lovable hackathon, is what first put Maurice & Nora on the map and let a non-technical founder get to market fast. He later brought on a technical co-founder, Klaas Bals, to build the platform out properly. We caught up with Thomas for our latest AgeTechX Founder Spotlight to talk about scaling non-medical care, why there's always a human in the loop, and why AI can close the logistics of care but not the loneliness. 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐁𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐨𝐧-𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞: Full story in the comments. Thomas joins us at AgeTechX Berlin 2026, 5-6 October, Pfefferberg Theater.

This Lovable prototype turned into a full company helping thousands of older adults every single day 👏 I came across Thomas Butstraen when we was pitching Maurice & Nora at a Lovable event last year and he went on to be our first registration for last years inaugural AgeTechX forum. Since then they've raised €1M and onboarded 4,500 students and 4,200 private customers. If you can dream it, you can build it. Excited to welcome Maurice & Nora to Berlin this October. It's amazing how Lovable enables entrepreneurs like Thomas to go solve real world problems and have an impact in people's lives in record time. I'm sure this is just one of good news stories from the Lovable team 👏 Anton Osika • Felix Haas • Elena Verna • Thomas Butstraen

As we make our way into July and the second half of 2026, I'm excited to share the latest Summer edition of the ProfessorMe newsletter. It’s been a busy yet entirely rewarding quarter, from launching our unified Professor Dynamo and BabbleMouth platforms to expanding our organization's footprint in Switzerland and beyond. If you want to see how we're making learning more inclusive and accessible around the clock, let's connect for a quick demo at the link below. 👇 🔗: https://lnkd.in/diDCx6Zs