📊 Memphis Data Professionals: Microsoft Fabric Data Engineering (Part 2) — Richard Adams turns raw transactional data into finance-ready reporting using the Wide World Importers dataset, with food and networking afterwards.

🎧 CodeCrew: Code Your Sound: Making Live Music with Strudel — Curiosity is the only prerequisite. Sequence beats and melodies live in Strudel and leave with a finished track in two hours.

🐍 Memphis Python User Group: Building Your First RAG Pipeline in Python — Builds a full RAG pipeline from scratch with Azure OpenAI, Cosmos DB, and Chroma DB, so you leave with working code from this virual session.

🗄️ Memphis .NET and Azure Developers Group: Vector Databases with Azure Cosmos DB & OpenAI — Balaji Venkatasubramaniyar breaks down how Azure Cosmos DB and Azure OpenAI power production-grade RAG at enterprise scale. In person only.

🛠️ Midsouth Makers: Weekly Friday Open House — Every Friday you can walk through a real makerspace, see what's being built, and swap ideas with fellow tinkerers, no experience required.

📊 Memphis AI Meetup: Free Weekly AI Conversations — Scott Finney hosts thirty minutes of open conversation on what's actually working with AI, no pitch deck or prerequisites required.

🎓 Built to Outlive Its Founders — Graduation is the whole point, not the problem.

🚨 Your Email Was Breached — The most dangerous click isn't the one you'd expect.

July 20 — 5:30 PM CDT (In-Person, CodeCrew HQ, Memphis, TN)

No coding background required, just curiosity. In two hours, turn code into music with Strudel, sequencing beats and melodies live in your browser. You will leave with a finished track, a new way to think through logic and creativity, and a first look at CodeCrew's creative tech community.

July 20 — 6:00 PM CDT (Virtual, Teams meeting)

RAG is how AI apps stop guessing and start citing sources, and this session builds one from scratch in Python. Balaji Venkatasubramaniyar, an IEEE member and speaker at Scenic City Summit and AgentCamp Memphis, walks through embeddings, vector search, and generation with Azure OpenAI, Cosmos DB, and Chroma DB. Leave with working code, not slides.

July 21 — 5:30 PM (In-Person, FedEx Institute of Technology, Room 225, Memphis, TN)

Same series, sharper focus. Fabric's Part 2 turns raw transactional data into something a finance team can report on. Richard Adams walks through the data engineering tools using a real Wide World Importers dataset, then networking over food follows the talk. Built for finance, accounting, and data professionals alike.

July 23 — 6:30 PM CDT (In-Person, Microsoft Corporation, 6750 Poplar Ave, Memphis, TN)

Vector search runs the show now. Azure Cosmos DB and Azure OpenAI combine to power production grade RAG systems, and this session breaks down the architecture patterns and tradeoffs enterprise teams hit at scale. Balaji Venkatasubramaniyar, an IEEE Senior Member and hackathon judge, leads the session in person only.

July 24 — 7:00 PM CDT (In-Person, 2804 Bartlett Road #3, Memphis, TN)

No project required, no experience needed. Every Friday, Midsouth Makers opens its doors so you can walk through a real makerspace, see what people are building, and swap ideas with fellow tinkerers. Show up curious and you already belong. It is a low pressure way to find out if this community, and its tools, are for you.

July 23, 6:00 PM (In-Person, Topgolf Memphis)

A casual evening of golf, food, and networking for PMI Memphis members and guests, open to both new and longtime community members.

July 21 — 9:15am (In-Person)

Thirty minutes, no pitch deck, no prerequisites. Scott Finney leads a weekly open conversation on what's actually working with AI in daily workflows at Congregation Coffee in Germantown. Whether you're two weeks into experimenting or two years deep, there's a seat for you here.

Shriya Toleti and Nadia Zirak are two University of Memphis seniors. They took the stage at this month’s Design & Code meetup to introduce Tiger Web Lab. The project grew out of a friendship that started in a shared computer science class.

Toleti, Zirak, and co-founder Pooja Mantena give away something many Memphis nonprofits, campus clubs, and small businesses can’t afford: a website and a digital presence. In return, students get real client work they can’t get from a syllabus. Faculty sponsor Brandon Booth vets each request. He then assigns it to a student team based on availability and expertise. Three projects are already moving: a site for a Memphis religious group, a site for a local business, and a site for the lab itself.

All three founders are graduating next year. That deadline is the point. They didn’t build Tiger Web Lab just to finish three websites. They built it so the vetting process and team system outlast them, with more students, mentors, and business partners still to recruit.

One attendee said before the event: "Collaboration is how we survive." That's the bet Tiger Web Lab is built on.

So, you checked HaveIBeenPwned.com and there it is: your email is on the list. In the great words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic! But don’t ignore it either.

When these records are leaked, they often include usernames, email addresses, and phone numbers. In larger-scale breaches, the stakes get much higher, involving sensitive data like SSNs and credit card information. While we aren't covering the complexities of credit monitoring here, we are focusing on the immediate task: locking your digital doors and kicking any intruders out of your accounts.

First & foremost, let's reset your password, using a password manager to generate a new, unique string. Crucially, DO NOT click the "Reset Password" link in an email or text notification. If you are already dealing with a leak, you are at high risk for phishing. Instead, manually type the website’s URL into your browser and initiate the reset through their official login page.

Next, audit your recovery methods, checking your secondary email addresses and security questions. Note that you can treat security questions like a secondary password; by "lying" or using something nonsensical, you are protected from someone looking you up on social media and guessing their way in.

Finally, check if Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is enabled. If it isn't, turn it on immediately, as even the weakest forms of MFA increase your security exponentially. If a service doesn't offer MFA, that’s a massive red flag; if they won't provide the basic tools to protect you, they aren't a partner worthy of trusting with your data.

If you missed our previous articles, be sure to go back and read up on Password Managers and MFA—they are essential pieces of the toolkit. Stay tuned as we dive deeper into the tools and tactics needed to stay safe in today's digital world. If you have infosec questions, or want to know my take on any particular topic, don't hesitate to reach out to Hackermane!

Guest Writer: Hackermane is a Memphis-based security expert and organizer of Midsouth Makers and Memphis Info Security, two meetups built on the same premise as this article: the threats are bigger than any one person, but the people in the room are how the city gets ahead of them anyway. Learn more or hang out: https://hackermane.com/

Memphis tech moves because three organizations choose to invest in it: Tech901, Uncomplicated Inc., and the Memphis Technology Foundation.

Tech901 grows the city’s talent pipeline by training Memphians with the skills that open real doors into tech careers. Uncomplicated Inc. builds human‑centered software and quietly powers the ecosystem with consistent, behind‑the‑scenes support. Memphis Technology Foundation keeps the community infrastructure alive—the meetups, the rooms, and the connective tissue that make this scene possible.

Their commitment ensures Memphis tech is covered with intention: the big moments, the builders, and the steady progress that rarely gets a spotlight.

If their work aligns with your values, consider standing alongside them.