{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ItemList","name":"An Open Room — upcoming tech events","description":"Human-curated upcoming tech and startup networking events across Europe.","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/api/feed/events.json","license":"https://www.anopenroom.com/about","numberOfItems":34,"itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Branch Leadership Summit","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/branch-leadership-summit-1019","startDate":"2026-10-19T09:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A full-day summit at the Treehouse Hotel built for engineering and technology leaders, deliberately structured to spend as much time on the room as on the stage.\n\nThe morning brings experienced technology leaders onto panels covering the current set of hard problems: leading through organisational change, building engineering cultures that hold, working out what AI actually changes for a team, leading remote, and influencing at board level. The afternoon is the real point of the day, handed over to facilitated roundtables where attendees bring their own situations rather than listen.\n\nNine until half five at Blackfriars Street.\n\nWhy go: Manchester has plenty of engineering meetups and very little aimed at the people managing the managers. If you are wrestling with a reorg or a flat engineering culture, this is the room with peers who have done it. Best for heads of engineering, CTOs and principal-level leads.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Treehouse Hotel Manchester","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Blackfriars Street, Manchester, M3 2EQ","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Branch"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/branch-leadership-summit-tickets-1991349877088","price":195,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Founders, Other"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"The Inaugural Manchester Turing Lecture: Prof Sir Bashir M. Al-Hashimi","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/the-inaugural-manchester-turing-lecture-prof-sir-bashir-m-al-hashimi-1019","startDate":"2026-10-19T14:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The first Manchester Turing Lecture, a new series from Digital Futures bringing internationally recognised research and technology leaders to the city, held in room G.003 at Alliance Manchester Business School.\n\nThe inaugural speaker is Professor Sir Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FRS FREng, Senior Vice President for Research and Special Initiatives at King's College London, known for work on computer engineering and energy-efficient computing that sits inside billions of devices. His talk is The Future of Scientific Research: Intentionally Designed Human-AI Collaboration, on how AI is reshaping every stage of the research workflow, from literature review and hypothesis generation through experimentation, analysis and publication.\n\nTwo and a half hours on the Booth Street West campus.\n\nWhy go: a first edition with a speaker of this standing sets the tone for the whole series, and the subject matter matters well beyond academia. Best for researchers, R and D leads and deeptech founders.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Alliance Manchester Business School","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Digital Futures"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-inaugural-manchester-turing-lecture-prof-sir-bashir-m-al-hashimi-tickets-1997848766441","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"DeepTech, AI & ML"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"MIOIR Seminar Series with Professor Erik Stam","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/mioir-seminar-series-with-professor-erik-stam-1019","startDate":"2026-10-19T15:30:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A Manchester Institute of Innovation Research seminar at Alliance Manchester Business School with Professor Erik Stam of Utrecht University, where he is Full Professor of Strategy, Organization and Entrepreneurship and academic director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.\n\nStam presents work on entrepreneurial ecosystems in Africa. The problem he sets up is that data on the conditions for productive entrepreneurship across the continent is scarce, which makes it very hard to improve those conditions in a context-specific way. His team pulled from public, private, global and African sources to build a dataset of 21 indicators measuring seven dimensions of national entrepreneurial ecosystems.\n\nOne hour, late afternoon, with an online option as well as the room.\n\nWhy go: Stam's ecosystem framework is one of the more cited in the field and this is a rare chance to question it directly. Best for policy people, ecosystem builders and researchers.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Alliance Manchester Business School (online also available)","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB, Manchester, GB","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Alliance Manchester Business School"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mioir-seminar-series-with-professor-erik-stam-tickets-2000418370195","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Founders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"DMLab North-West: Accessible music technology","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/dmlab-north-west-accessible-music-technology-1020","startDate":"2026-10-20T18:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A hands-on DMLab session at SODA, Manchester Metropolitan's School of Digital Arts, for Disabled and non-Disabled musicians and technologists working on accessible music technology.\n\nThis session starts a collaborative project to design and build an accessible MIDI instrument. The group will look at past DMLab designs and try to arrive at an original concept that removes access barriers, allows real musical expression, and stays cheap and practical to build. The co-design approach is deliberate: newer makers pick up basic electronics, coding, 3D printing, laser cutting and enclosure design alongside more experienced people.\n\nAll experience levels welcome, musicians and non-musicians alike.\n\nWhy go: it is a genuine build session rather than a talk about inclusion, and the output is a real instrument. Best for hardware tinkerers, creative technologists and anyone working on accessibility in product design.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"School of Digital Arts (SODA)","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Manchester Metropolitan University, 14 Higher Chatham Street, Manchester, M15 6ED","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Drake Music"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dmlab-north-west-accessible-music-technology-tickets-2002786490306","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Design, Health & Bio"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"The 9 Are Abroad — Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/the-9-are-abroad-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-ai-1020","startDate":"2026-10-20T18:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The Manchester Statistical Society hosts Daniel Dresner, Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Manchester, at Cross Street Chapel.\n\nDresner's argument, delivered with more literary reference than most security talks manage, is that humanity's response to new technology swings between banning everything and pressing the button to see what happens, and that there is very little genuinely new under the sun. Technology, on this reading, is mostly a matter of speed. He is sceptical of AI's comparative adjectives, preferring to call it alleged intelligence, and traces how the field ended up detached from the body of practice that should ground it.\n\nTwo hours in one of the city's oldest learned societies.\n\nWhy go: a security professor being properly rude about AI hype, in front of an audience of statisticians who will push back. Best for anyone tired of credulous AI talks.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Cross Street Chapel","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Cross Street Manchester","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manchester Statistical Society"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.meetup.com/manchester-statistical-society-meetup-group/events/316264733/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, Other"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":6,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"NVIDIA GTC Keynote Watch Party","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/nvidia-gtc-keynote-watch-party-1021","startDate":"2026-10-21T09:30:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"TIC Manchester and NVIDIA host a watch party at Sister in the Renold Building for NVIDIA founder and chief executive Jensen Huang's GTC keynote, delivered live from GTC Berlin.\n\nGTC keynotes have become one of the fixed points in the AI calendar, where new technologies and NVIDIA's bets on the direction of computing get announced. This one is expected to cover accelerated computing and AI infrastructure, open models, physical AI and the technologies starting to reshape industries. The Manchester room joins NVIDIA partners doing the same thing worldwide.\n\nFive hours from half nine, free, with time afterwards to talk about what landed.\n\nWhy go: watching a keynote alone at your desk tells you what was announced; watching it with Manchester's AI community tells you what people building here think it means. Best for AI engineers, infrastructure people and investors.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Sister - Renold Building","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"32a Altrincham Street, Manchester, M1 7JR","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Turing Innovation Catalyst Manchester"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://luma.com/evi266iy","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, DeepTech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":7,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"GM Innovation Expo 2026","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/gm-innovation-expo-2026-1021","startDate":"2026-10-21T09:30:00+01:00","endDate":"2026-10-21T15:30:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"Greater Manchester's flagship annual innovation event, at Manchester Central, bringing SMEs, startups, universities, investors, policymakers and the region's business support organisations into one hall.\n\nThe day runs innovation showcases from some of the region's more interesting businesses, live demonstrations across AI, advanced manufacturing, green technologies, life sciences and emerging sectors, speaker sessions on where innovation is heading, and structured networking rather than the open-floor sort. Funding and support organisations are present with information on what is actually available.\n\nHalf nine to half three, Windmill Street.\n\nWhy go: it is the one day a year when the region's innovation funders, universities and support agencies are all in the same building and reachable without a diary request. Best for founders looking for grant funding or a university partner, and for anyone mapping the Greater Manchester support landscape.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Manchester Central Convention Complex","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Windmill Street, Manchester, M2 3GX","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"GM Business Growth Hub @ The Growth Company"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gm-innovation-expo-2026-tickets-1993456400757","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"DeepTech, Investors"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":8,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"She Scales: Female Founders Connection and Co-working","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/she-scales-female-founders-connection-and-co-working-1021","startDate":"2026-10-21T10:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"She Scales is the NatWest Accelerator's monthly female founders connection and co-working morning, run across every Accelerator hub in the UK and here at the Manchester hub in Spinningfields.\n\nThe standing format is a dedicated space for women building and growing businesses to share experience and work alongside each other. This month's session is an interactive workshop on cyclical energy and sustainable performance, drawing on women's health research to look at how hormonal changes across the menstrual cycle affect focus, motivation and response to stress, and what to do with that rather than work against it.\n\nNinety minutes from ten, with co-working either side.\n\nWhy go: the regularity is the value here, this is a standing room rather than a one-off, and the Accelerator cohort is a useful network to be inside. Best for women founders in Greater Manchester at any stage.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"NatWest Accelerator Manchester Hub","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"1 Spinningfields Square, Manchester, M3 3AP","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manchester NatWest Accelerator"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/she-scales-female-founders-connection-and-coworking-tickets-1992819766567","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Founders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":9,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"#exabits: Computing History Tour: Alan Turing's Manchester","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/exabits-computing-history-tour-alan-turings-manchester-1021","startDate":"2026-10-21T12:30:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A free ninety-minute guided walking tour of Alan Turing's Manchester, starting at Piccadilly Station, led by Alan O'Donohoe, a computing teacher and Turing enthusiast.\n\nTuring arrived in Manchester in 1948 at the start of the digital age and the city was his home and workplace for the last six years of his life, the period in which he did much of his foundational work on computing and machine intelligence. The walk covers why he came here, the locations tied to his life and work, and the connections most Mancunians have never heard. Attendees get a printed guide to repeat the route or pass on.\n\nPart one of the Manchester Computing History series, with coffee afterwards.\n\nWhy go: Manchester's claim to the modern computer is told badly most of the time, and this does it properly, for free, over a lunch hour and a half. Best for anyone who works in software here and has never looked up.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Piccadilly Station","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Manchester Piccadilly Station, Manchester M1 2WD","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Exa Foundation"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exabits-computing-history-tour-alan-turings-manchester-tickets-1998428485396","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Other"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":10,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Manchester STEM Women Graduate Careers Event","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/manchester-stem-women-graduate-careers-event-1021","startDate":"2026-10-21T13:30:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A free careers fair at the Bridgewater Hall for women and non-binary students and recent graduates from science, technology, engineering and maths courses, run by STEM Women.\n\nThe format is straightforward: graduate employers take stalls, attendees move between them talking directly to recruitment teams about internships and graduate roles, asking the questions that do not fit in an online application. Registration is required and the organisers warn they may cancel orders from people outside the stated criteria when the event is near capacity.\n\nTwo and a half hours from half one, free.\n\nWhy go: for employers it is one of the few concentrated routes to women graduating into technical roles in the North West, and for candidates it replaces a month of applications with an afternoon of conversations. Best for final-year students, recent graduates and anyone hiring graduates into engineering or data teams.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"The Bridgewater Hall","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Lower Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3WS","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"STEM Women"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/manchester-stem-women-graduate-careers-event-tickets-1981567238954","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Other"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":11,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Navigating the UX Job Market","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/navigating-the-ux-job-market-1021","startDate":"2026-10-21T18:00:00+01:00","endDate":"2026-10-21T20:30:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A panel evening for people job hunting in UX, built around recruiters and hiring managers who actually read the portfolios. The panel covers what makes a candidate memorable, how to pitch your skills when the role description is vague, and how hiring decisions get made on the other side of the table.\n\nLadies That UX Manchester run it, with Hippo and MoneySupermarket sponsoring. Doors at 6pm with food and drinks, a build-your-own-business-card session at 6:30, and the panel at 7. Speaker names were still to be announced when this was written.\n\nPhotography happens on the night; you can ask staff not to be photographed.\n\nWhy go: the UK UX market is tight and this is one of the few Manchester rooms where the people doing the hiring take questions directly. Best for designers and researchers who are looking now, or expect to be.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"No.1 Spinningfields","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"1 Hardman Square, Manchester, M3 3EB","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Ladies That UX Manchester"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/navigating-the-ux-job-market-tickets-2003011115165","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Design, Careers"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":12,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Network One: Fintech Founders & Finance Innovators Meetup Manchester","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/network-one-fintech-founders-finance-innovators-meetup-manchester-1021","startDate":"2026-10-21T18:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A Network One evening at The Anthologist in St Peter's Square aimed specifically at Manchester's fintech community: startup founders and product builders, developers, investors and finance professionals working on what comes next in financial technology.\n\nThe organisers are clear about the format, which is no pitches and no panels, just a few hours of conversation. The stated audience spans payments platforms, decentralised finance, traditional finance with a technology angle, and students in finance, economics or computer science who want to see the sector up close.\n\nThree hours from six, city centre.\n\nWhy go: Manchester's fintech scene is real but scattered across banks, scale-ups and the university, and sector-specific rooms like this are the cheapest way to see who else is here. Best for fintech founders and developers, and worth noting FinTech North's full conference follows on 26 November.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"The Anthologist St Peter's Square","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"One Saint Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 3DE, Manchester, GB","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Network One"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/network-one-fintech-founders-finance-innovators-meetup-manchester-tickets-2000257543157","price":30,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Fintech, SaaS, Founders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":13,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Venture Cafe Manchester: One Year On","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/venture-cafe-manchester-one-year-on-1022","startDate":"2026-10-22T17:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"Venture Cafe Manchester marks a year of Thursday Gatherings at Sister in the Renold Building, and uses the anniversary to show what came through it.\n\nThe programme features Papermill, a document engine for AI workflows whose typesetting adapts generated reports, contracts and compliance packs to changing data, and mushroom plus, a Manchester pre-seed molecular farming startup raising mushroom protein content up to tenfold towards meat-level density. The centrepiece is a fireside chat with ARIA chief executive Kathleen Fisher at six, live-illustrated by John Cooper, who spends the evening building an interactive mural of the city's innovation ecosystem that attendees are invited to add to.\n\nThree hours, drop in, no ticket.\n\nWhy go: the ARIA conversation alone justifies the trip, and the anniversary pulls in a year's worth of the community at once. Best for founders, researchers and anyone who has been meaning to try Venture Cafe.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Manchester","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Venture Café Manchester"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://community.venturecafemanchester.org/events/d64f9066-dcec-4027-a79a-03a296352ad2","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Fintech, Founders, Investors"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":14,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Practically AI Manchester — October (Talks TBC)","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/practically-ai-manchester-october-talks-tbc-1022","startDate":"2026-10-22T18:00:00+01:00","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"Practically AI's October meetup at AZoNetwork's offices in NEO on Charlotte Street, with two talks on the same theme: as AI takes on more of software engineering, the engineering fundamentals matter more rather than less.\n\nPhil Whittaker walks through the stages teams pass through as they move from simple prompting to managing context, building agent harnesses, and eventually running reliable autonomous development loops and graphs, looking at what each stage solves and what new problems it creates. The session keeps returning to the traditional practices, testing, architecture and observability, that make any of it work.\n\nDoors from six, talks from half six.\n\nWhy go: most agentic-AI talks are demos; this one is about what breaks at each step and why your existing engineering discipline is the thing that saves you. Best for software engineers and leads actually shipping AI-assisted work.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"AZoNetwork","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"AZoNetwork, Bruntwood SciTech.  9 Charlotte St,  M1 4ET","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Practically AI: Applied AI for Software Engineers Manchester"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.meetup.com/practically-ai-applied-ai-for-software-engineers-manchester/events/315615691/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, DeepTech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":15,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"FUEL Manchester 2026","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/fuel-manchester-2026-1028","startDate":"2026-10-28T09:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-10-28T11:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"FUEL Manchester's breakfast panel at No.1 Circle Square, sponsored by GM Business Growth Hub and Nybble with support from Bruntwood SciTech, built around founders giving growth advice rather than a keynote.\n\nThe confirmed line-up includes Sam White, founder and chief executive of Stella Insurance, Thomas Keighley, co-founder and chief executive of urfuture, Sid Sethi of Specscart, Fergal O'Connor of Buymedia, Phil McCabe of Hybrid Solutions Group, Hannah Smith of Red Rock, Gabriel Erinle of GAME FM, Janine Smith of GM Business Growth Hub and Ram Gupta of Nybble, alongside former England rugby league head coach Shaun Wane.\n\nThe panel is free and open; a second part puts 25 selected businesses into masterclass pods with experts, by separate application.\n\nWhy go: nine operating founders on one morning panel, free, before work. Best for early-stage founders in Greater Manchester weighing a growth push.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"No.1 Circle Square","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"3 Symphony Park, #1, Manchester, M1 7FS","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechBlast - BusinessCloud's events brand"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fuel-manchester-2026-tickets-1999044213054","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Founders, Marketing"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":16,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Nothing Looked Fake: Cyber Awareness for All","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/nothing-looked-fake-cyber-awareness-for-all-1028","startDate":"2026-10-28T16:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A practical session on how modern scams actually work, built around the point that the old tells have stopped working. Attackers now use genuine login pages, real tooling and the target's own actions, so spotting a fake by looking for spelling mistakes or a dodgy URL no longer gets you very far.\n\nDriscop run it as a walk-through of real examples rather than a lecture, followed by a quick-fire challenge to test what people picked up, a guest speaker, and an hour of networking with drinks. Three hours at Campfield in the city centre, free to attend.\n\nWhy go: it is pitched at everyone, not just security teams, which makes it a rare thing to send non-technical colleagues to without losing them. Best for operations, finance and founder-level staff who sign off payments.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Campfield","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Lower Byrom Street, Manchester, M3 4FP","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Driscop Ltd"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nothing-looked-fake-cyber-awareness-for-all-tickets-2002828356529","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Other, Social"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":17,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Context, Retrieval & Compromised Agents","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/context-retrieval-compromised-agents-1028","startDate":"2026-10-28T17:45:00Z","endDate":"2026-10-28T20:30:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"Two talks on the unglamorous end of running AI agents: getting the right context into them, and what happens when one gets taken over.\n\nAntónio Morais and Akbar Gumbira, both machine learning engineers at Elastic, cover building better context with visual intelligence and semantic retrieval - how to feed agents the right material and serve the models behind them reliably. Shade Obiti, a cybersecurity analyst at Accenture, follows with a live demo of a compromised AI agent that keeps coming back after the obvious security measures are in place.\n\nHosted by Manchester AI at Accenture's Circle Square office. Registration is gated: RSVP yes, complete the organiser's form, and bring photo ID on the night.\n\nWhy go: retrieval quality and agent security are where most production AI work actually goes wrong, and both talks come from people shipping it. Best for ML and platform engineers.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Accenture","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"No. 2 Circle Square, 1 Symphony Park, 5th Floor, Manchester, M1 7FS","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manchester AI"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.meetup.com/manchester-ai/events/316976981/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, Security"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":18,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Founders Coffee Club (Inc Coworking & Nibbles) - MCR","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/founders-coffee-club-inc-coworking-nibbles-mcr-1029","startDate":"2026-10-29T10:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A monthly founders' coffee morning at Clockwise on Dickinson Street, run on the last Thursday. The format is deliberately bare: no speeches, no presentations, no selling. You turn up, get a coffee, and the hosts introduce you to someone rather than leaving you to work the room.\n\nThe ticket is 17.50 pounds and includes a coworking day pass, so most people stay and work afterwards. Attendance is founders only and subject to host approval, which keeps the recruiters and agencies out.\n\nWhy go: Manchester has plenty of evening networking and very little in the morning that is actually restricted to founders. The day pass makes it worth blocking out rather than dropping into for an hour. Best for early-stage founders who want conversation without a programme.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Clockwise Linley House","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Linley House, Dickinson Street, Manchester, M1 4LF","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Founders Coffee Club"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://luma.com/dfmaetg3","price":17.5,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Founders, Social"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":19,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"AI SOCIAL CLUB: Creative AI for Beginners","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/ai-social-club-creative-ai-for-beginners-1029","startDate":"2026-10-29T11:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-10-29T17:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A full-day hands-on workshop on generative AI for people who make things - film, writing, images, music - with no technical background assumed.\n\nStephanie Ronan-Chlond runs it. She is a documentary-trained filmmaker who spent fifteen years producing for UK broadcasters and now works with brands and creatives on AI storytelling. The day covers how generative models and LLMs actually work, ChatGPT for writing and ideation, image generation with a side-by-side look at Midjourney and Nano Banana, the current state of AI video and audio tools, and where ethics sit in a working practice.\n\nAt SEESAW on Princess Street, 11am to 5pm. Places are capped at 25. Bring a laptop; a few shared ones are available, and a setup email goes out after booking.\n\nWhy go: most AI-for-creatives sessions are a demo reel. Six hours, a cap of 25 and a practitioner at the front make it a workshop instead. Best for freelance creatives and small studio teams working out what to actually adopt.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"SEESAW","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"86 Princess Street, Manchester, M1 6NG","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Future Artists"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ai-social-club-creative-ai-for-beginners-tickets-2002301536797","price":45,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, Design"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":20,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Those Serendipitous Mavericks: The Ratio Club and early British Cybernetics","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/those-serendipitous-mavericks-the-ratio-club-and-early-british-cybernetics-1029","startDate":"2026-10-29T13:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-10-29T15:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The second of nine monthly seminars in the Meat the Machine series, on the history of cybernetics and what it implies for how people and machines end up working together.\n\nThis session is on the Ratio Club - the dining and discussion group that British life scientists, mathematicians, engineers and physicists formed after Norbert Wiener published Cybernetics in 1948. Alan Turing was a member, and his engagement with the club and its people fed into his later work. Dr Colin Williams leads it; he is a principal cyber security specialist at CDS Defence and Security with around three decades in UK government and public sector, and researches the history of cybernetics alongside that.\n\nFree, in person at the University of Manchester, 1pm to 3pm, run through Digital Futures.\n\nWhy go: the current argument about machine intelligence keeps rediscovering questions this group was already arguing about in 1949, in this city. Best for people who want the long view rather than another model release.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"The University of Manchester","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Digital Futures"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.manchesterdigital.com/event/the-university-of-manchester/those-serendipitous-mavericks-the-ratio-club-and-early-british-cybernetics","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"DeepTech, AI & ML"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":21,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"GROW AI: From Innovation to Adoption in Greater Manchester","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/grow-ai-from-innovation-to-adoption-in-greater-manchester-1029","startDate":"2026-10-29T17:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The Thursday Gathering turned over to Grow AI, a 12.8 million pound partnership between Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Manchester, funded by the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund, to build out the AI cluster across Greater Manchester.\n\nThe session introduces the Challenge AI Labs, which put corporates, SMEs, community groups, academics and students together on problems in four frontier sectors. The first Lab is health, run with Health Innovation Manchester, and the challenges are shaped by the people who own the problem rather than handed down. Selected companies go on to build with NHS partners and academics; Creative and Digital, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, and Net Zero follow.\n\nVenture Cafe's usual format applies: open doors, no ticket barrier, three hours of sessions and conversation.\n\nWhy go: this is the clearest public read yet on how Grow AI money will actually be spent, and the Labs are recruiting participants in the room. Best for founders and researchers with something to put into a health AI challenge.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Sister - Renold Building","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"32a Altrincham Street, Manchester, M1 7JR","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Venture Café Manchester"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.manchesterdigital.com/event/venture-cafe-manchester/grow-ai-from-innovation-to-adoption-in-greater-manchester","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, Founders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":22,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"PBIMCR presents 'FabCon Europe Key Takeaways'","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/pbimcr-presents-fabcon-europe-key-takeaways-1029","startDate":"2026-10-29T17:45:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A recap of FabCon Europe, the Microsoft Fabric and SQL community conference held in Barcelona, for people who could not get there.\n\nMartin Brierley, Data & AI Practice Lead at ANS, covers what the latest Fabric announcements mean for data engineering and enterprise AI readiness, drawing on seventeen years of enterprise architecture. Ian Pike, Data & AI Solutions Architect at ANS, gives live demos of the new features: tenant settings, Git integration and Direct Lake improvements, plus what the platform changes do to local data pipelines and licensing.\n\nHosted by the Fabric & Power BI Manchester User Group at ANS in Hulme. Doors 5:30, talks 6:00 to 7:15, then pizza, drinks and open questions. First-timers welcome.\n\nWhy go: conference recaps are usually slide dumps. Two practice leads doing live demos of features they have already tried against real pipelines is more useful. Best for data engineers and analysts on the Microsoft stack.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"ANS Group Limited","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Birley Fields, 1 Archway, Hulme, Manchester, M15 5QJ","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Fabric & Power BI Manchester User Group"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.meetup.com/pbimcr/events/316695089/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, SaaS"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":23,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Jonny Muir: Service Design – From Potato Peelers to Butterflies","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/jonny-muir-service-design-from-potato-peelers-to-butterflies-1029","startDate":"2026-10-29T18:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-10-29T20:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"Jonny Muir - designer, computer scientist and two-time Umbraco MVP - on how service design shapes what a digital project actually becomes, and on treating Umbraco as a platform rather than a content management system.\n\nThe talk covers the Wayfinder framework, Block Grid and the wider package ecosystem, Umbraco Automate for declarative workflows, and where AI fits into that way of working. Pizza and networking from 6pm, talk at 6:45.\n\nHosted by the Manchester and North West Umbraco Meetup at CTI Digital's Peter Street office.\n\nWhy go: CMS meetups usually stay on implementation detail; this one starts from how the service is designed and works back to the build. Best for developers and designers on content-heavy projects, whether or not they use Umbraco.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"CTI Digital","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"South Central, 11 Peter Street, Manchester, M2 5QR","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manchester and North West Umbraco Meetup"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.meetup.com/manchester-umbraco-meetup/events/317037980/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Software Engineering, Design"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":24,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"HealthTech Evidence Generation Workshop - Part 1","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/healthtech-evidence-generation-workshop-part-1-1102","startDate":"2026-11-02T09:30:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The first of a two-part workshop on building the evidence the NHS actually buys on, rather than guessing at it. Part two follows on 20 January 2027.\n\nThis day is about the problem rather than the study design. Short talks and discussion work through how patients, clinicians, NHS payers and investors each define an unmet need differently, and participants apply those four lenses to their own technology. The rest covers what is already known in your area, which study your project needs at its current stage, and how to show the NHS the problem is worth paying to solve. No economic modelling background is assumed. Led by Dr Alexander Thompson and Dr Matthew Parkes.\n\nAt the Core Technology Facility on Grafton Street. 100 pounds covers both workshops, lunch included.\n\nWhy go: the gap between a working healthtech product and an NHS purchase order is an evidence gap, and almost nobody runs a workshop on it. Best for founders and clinical leads heading towards procurement.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Core Technology Facility, University of Manchester","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"46 Grafton Street, Manchester, M13 9WU","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"NIHR HRC in Emergency and Acute Care"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/healthtech-evidence-generation-workshop-part-1-registration-1994013208183","price":100,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Health & Bio, DeepTech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":25,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"NSManchester - November 2026","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/nsmanchester-november-2026-1102","startDate":"2026-11-02T18:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The monthly meeting of NSManchester, the city's Swift, iOS and Mac developer group, held on the first Monday at Neo on Charlotte Street.\n\nThe format is short talks from members followed by time in the room. Speakers for a given month are usually confirmed close to the date rather than in advance, and the group publishes the decks afterwards in its public talks repository on GitHub, which doubles as a record of what the Manchester iOS scene has been working on. Hosted by Tim and Chris B. 6pm to 8pm.\n\nWhy go: it is the only standing Apple-platform developer group in Manchester and it has kept going for years, which matters more than any single month's line-up. Best for iOS and macOS developers who want local people to ask rather than a forum.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Neo","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"9 Charlotte Street, Manchester","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"NSManchester - Swift, iOS & Mac Developer Group"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.meetup.com/nsmanchester/events/rpwfrsyjcpbdb/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Design, Other"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":26,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Manchester Tech Network (MTN) - Evening drinks, 3 November","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/manchester-tech-network-mtn-evening-drinks-3-november-1103","startDate":"2026-11-03T19:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The fortnightly Manchester Tech Network evening drinks at Slug and Lettuce on Deansgate. Informal, no presentations - software engineers, product managers, designers, UX practitioners, data and AI people, and startup founders and operators from across the Manchester tech community.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Slug and Lettuce","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"64-66 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 2EN","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manchester Tech Network (MTN)"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.meetup.com/manchester-tech-network/events/316069979/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Social, Founders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":27,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Grow your sales: Unlock Your Data","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/grow-your-sales-unlock-your-data-1104","startDate":"2026-11-04T09:45:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"In this workshop we’ll show you how to implement, organise and track your business data to make informed decisions.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Natwest Accelerator Manchester Hub","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"1 Spinningfields Square, Manchester, M3 3AP, Manchester, GB","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manchester NatWest Accelerator"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/grow-your-sales-unlock-your-data-tickets-1994193511475","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Other"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":28,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Practical AI for Executive Leaders","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/practical-ai-for-executive-leaders-1104","startDate":"2026-11-04T13:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A ninety-minute workshop at the NatWest Accelerator's Spinningfields hub for business owners and leaders who know AI matters but have not worked out where it fits in their own operation.\n\nThe session explains the technology in plain English, walks through ways it is already being used in ordinary businesses, and then works with attendees to identify where it could save time in theirs. It is a working session rather than a keynote, and it runs over lunch, which keeps it to a single slot in the diary.\n\nPart of the Accelerator's Catalyst Events programme, open beyond the accelerator cohort.\n\nWhy go: most AI sessions in Manchester are either vendor demos or deep technical talks, and this is neither. Best for owner-managers and senior leaders at non-tech companies who want a shortlist of candidate use cases they can act on.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"NatWest Accelerator Manchester Hub","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"1 Spinningfields Square, Manchester, M3 3AP","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manchester NatWest Accelerator"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/practical-ai-for-executive-leaders-tickets-2002455141232","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, Founders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":29,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Conversations in the AI era | Builder Community Meetup | Manchester","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/conversations-in-the-ai-era-builder-community-meetup-manchester-1104","startDate":"2026-11-04T18:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-11-04T21:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"Twilio UK brings its builder meetup back to Manchester for an evening of practical AI talks, food and networking at Colony on King Street. Harry Chyshkala and Valdis Strautinš take apart the anatomy of SMS pumping — the fraud pattern that quietly bills messaging platforms — and look at how developers are using AI at an advanced level. Free.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Colony King Street","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"76 King Street, Manchester M2 4NH","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Twilio UK"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://luma.com/401md669","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, DeepTech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":30,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"DISCO Manchester","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/disco-manchester-1105","startDate":"2026-11-05T08:30:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"Join us to explore the current state of data in schools and find out what works and what doesn't.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"The Studio","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"51 Lever Street, Manchester, M1 1FN, Manchester, GB","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Equin Limited"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/disco-manchester-tickets-1990377486642","price":75,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Other"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":31,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"Venture Café Manchester: Ambitious Science, New Models - Focused Research Organisations & the UK Funding Landscape","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/venture-caf-manchester-ambitious-science-new-models-focused-research-organisatio-1105","startDate":"2026-11-05T17:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-11-05T20:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"The weekly Venture Café Thursday Gathering, this edition on Focused Research Organisations and where they sit in the UK funding landscape - the model built for science that is too large for a single lab and too early for a company, and the question of what funds that work here.\n\nVenture Café evenings run as a set of sessions plus open networking across three hours rather than one talk, at SISTER on the Renold Building site. Free, with registration through the Venture Café community platform. The full session list is published closer to the date.\n\nWhy go: focused research organisations and the money around them get discussed far more in London than in Manchester, and this is the city's standing room for research-heavy founders. Best for deep tech founders, university spinouts, and anyone raising against a science roadmap rather than a revenue one.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Sister - Renold Building","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"32a Altrincham Street, Manchester, M1 7JR","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Venture Café Manchester"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://community.venturecafemanchester.org/events/48","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Founders, Deep Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":32,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"WordCamp Manchester 2026","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/wordcamp-manchester-2026-1106","startDate":"2026-11-06T09:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-11-06T16:40:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"WordCamp Manchester returns as a barcamp-style day — no traditional talks, just structured conversations between the people who build, design and run WordPress sites. Sessions are shaped by attendees on the day.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Whitworth Locke","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"74 Princess Street, Manchester, M1 6JD","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"WordCamp Manchester"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://manchester.wordcamp.org/2026/tickets/","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"SaaS, Design"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":33,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"The Shortlist - Account Based Marketing for B2B SaaS Manchester Meetup","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/the-shortlist-account-based-marketing-for-b2b-saas-manchester-meetup-1106","startDate":"2026-11-06T10:00:00Z","endDate":"2026-11-06T12:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"A morning session for B2B SaaS marketers running account-based programmes, and for anyone trying to get their marketing data into a state an AI tool can do something useful with.\n\nJonathan Catton, Head of Data & Insights at the agency Hallam, walks through how his team pulled scattered marketing data into one place and what changed once they had. Attendees then take their own questions to small tables with hosts, and the morning closes with open networking run by Silicon Mingle.\n\nOrganised by Overfunded. Free, in person at Department Campfield, and no technical background is assumed.\n\nWhy go: most ABM sessions stay at strategy level and skip the data plumbing that decides whether any of it works. Best for B2B marketers and growth leads at SaaS companies who own the numbers themselves.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Department Campfield","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Lower Byrom Street, Manchester, M3 4FP","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Overfunded"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://luma.com/xetbht0p","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"Marketing, SaaS"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":34,"item":{"@type":"Event","name":"GreatUniHack 2026","url":"https://www.anopenroom.com/manchester/events/greatunihack-2026-1107","startDate":"2026-11-07T09:00:00Z","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","description":"UniCS runs Manchester's flagship student hackathon: hundreds of builders, mentors and engineers spend a packed day turning raw ideas into shipped software, with workshops, food and over £70,000 in prizes. Open to students from any university, entering alone or in teams.","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Nancy Rothwell Building","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"The University of Manchester, Booth Street East, Manchester, M13 9SS","addressLocality":"Manchester","addressCountry":"United Kingdom"}},"organizer":{"@type":"Organization","name":"UniCS"},"offers":{"@type":"Offer","url":"https://greatunihack.com/apply/hacker","price":0,"priceCurrency":"GBP","availability":"https://schema.org/InStock"},"keywords":"AI & ML, Founders, DeepTech"}}]}