Bristol tech events this week: Brazen bows out, and Thursday takes eight

Twenty-four. That's how many tech events sit on our Bristol page between this morning and Thursday night, and nineteen of them are free. Brazen gets one last morning today, then the weekend's empty, Monday has one room, and the week stacks up from Tuesday. Wednesday has seven rooms, Thursday eight. Plenty of networking events in Bristol this week. The skill is picking the afternoon you can actually leave your desk for.

Last week, briefly

Brazen ran Monday to Thursday, eleven techSPARK rows on our page and the Lab Bus tours through Open Bionics, WASE and Smartbox. The Bristol AI Shed finale sold out. One correction from Thursday: Tech4Good South West's digital inclusion morning asked people to arrive at 09:45 and finished at 11:30. We had 10:00. What that means for today: Brazen Summit Day 5 at St Nicholas Church, 09:30 to 13:00, £45, is the festival's last word.

The Big One: Sarah O'Connor on AI and work, Wednesday

Are We Heading For A Labour Market AI-pocalypse? - Wed 18 Nov, 13:30, Cinema 1, Watershed, £6.13.

Festival of Economics brings the FT's work columnist to the Watershed with a sharper version of the automation question. Her case: work is getting lonelier, less creative and less human, and that matters more than the job-loss headline. It's built on her book We Are Not Machines, which also finds jobs made safer and better where workers took control of the new tools. She's in conversation with Heather Stewart, the Guardian's economics editor, and Sue Turner OBE, Professor in Practice in AI and Digital Technologies at the University of Bristol Business School.

One hour, lunchtime, about six quid. If you're putting AI into a team, this is the argument you'll be having with that team next year. Hear it from people who've reported it first. No refunds, so commit when you book.

The week, by time of day

Mornings

Stop Hiring for Yesterday - Fri 13 Nov, 10:00, The Station, free. Aer Studios and UX Crunch get you rewriting a real job spec in the room. You leave with a document.

Degrees, Debt And Disruption - Wed 18 Nov, 11:30, Watershed, £6.13. The FT's Chris Smyth chairs Wonkhe's Debbie McVitty and Universities UK's Sarah Bevan on what a degree signals once AI can do entry-level work. Pairs with the Big One two hours later.

November Innovation Breakfast - Thu 19 Nov, 08:30, Runway East Bristol Bridge, free, eight places. Dolo Miah of New Icon steers a table through the cost of postponing change: legacy systems, workarounds, tech debt.

Afternoons

Discover SETsquared Open Event - Wed 18 Nov, 15:00, Sloane Robinson Building, free. Entrepreneurs in Residence, a member fireside and the team on a panel. The quickest way to decide whether incubation is for you.

SETsquared Workshop: Build Less, Learn More - Thu 19 Nov, 14:00, Sloane Robinson Building, free. Rocketmakers' Richard Godfrey on scoping an MVP around your riskiest question. A builder telling builders when not to build.

Friday's Brazen community track closes at The Station: Why Weird Works at 13:30 and Create Lightning at 15:00, both free.

Evenings

Tuesday has four at once. Databricks Bristol Meetup at iO Associates, 17:30, Alex Cole on a year of release data. Bristol AI Ethics at Torchbox, 18:00, Hugh Williams on responsibility gaps in care-sector AI. CodeHub's Hack Night at DeskLodge House, 18:15. And the BDFI Public Lecture: Artificial Intimacy at 18:30.

Wednesday splits by tribe. Marketers take The Marketing Meetup IRL at Temple Studios, 17:30, from £5. Practitioners take Mindstone Bristol at Origin Workspace, 18:00. Data people take Bytes & Bites at Runway East, 18:00, on data governance inside an SME. Creative tech takes YOU GET WHAT YOU GET 21 at The Square Club, 18:30.

Monday and Thursday are lighter. Design Truth / Bristol, Mon 18:00 at Tobacco Factory Theatres, paid: product designers, pizza, a Movember fundraiser, no talks. Thursday has the first Data & AI Professionals Meetup at BT's Assembly, 17:30, and Electra - Community Event at 18:30.

Venue corner: NatWest Accelerator Hub, Thursday

Global Entrepreneurship Week puts four rooms in one building on Avon Street. Ecosystem Builders Meetup at 11:30 is The Entrepreneurs Network's first Bristol edition, approval-gated. Founder Reunion at 12:30 has Signable's Olly Culverhouse. Then Catalyst: Defensibility for Founders and Investors in the AI Era at 14:30 and Catalyst: How to build your Advisory Board at 15:30. All free.

Practical bits: the hub opens from 9am if you want to work from it between sessions. Our listings give it as both "Trinity Quay 2, Avon Street" and "2 Avon Street". Same place, BS2 0PT. Cameras are in the room for the Founder Reunion and the advisory board session.

Who should go where

Builders, Tuesday night. Hack Night if you want to ship your own thing; Databricks if you run the platform. Wednesday's Mindstone build talk is the fallback.

Founders, Thursday afternoon. Build Less, Learn More at 14:00, then walk to Avon Street for the defensibility debate. If you're pre-seed and undecided on incubation, Wednesday's SETsquared open afternoon first.

Investors, one room. The Catalyst defensibility debate splits founders and investors into two sides and votes live, about sixty expected. It's the only room this week built for you.

Sales and marketing, Wednesday and Friday. The Marketing Meetup is pay-what-you-like with no selling allowed. Friday's Why Weird Works is 25 minutes for anyone whose work is correct and ignorable.

Worth knowing

Electra's Thursday evening has no price and no address on our row. It reads free, but Electra's page lists no ticket price. Our address line says only "Bristol". It's Origin Workspace, 40 Berkeley Square, BS8 1HP. Last week's Electra dinner is still unresolved at our end.

Small rooms fill first. The Innovation Breakfast seats eight. Bristol AI Ethics had 18 places left when we checked. The new Data & AI Professionals Meetup confirms attendance itself, so an RSVP isn't a seat.

Design Truth is paid; we hold no figure. The listing says no refunds.

Coming up

Wed 25 Nov: the Microsoft 365 Copilot User Group turns into an Agent-a-thon at Aerospace Bristol, 10:00 to 15:00, no coding needed.

Over to you

Everything above, and anything we didn't have room for, is on the Bristol page. Running a room before Christmas? Send it in and it goes in the next edition.