Dublin tech events this week: AI takes the wheel, and the builders keep building (14–20 Aug)
Dublin tech events 14–20 Aug: AI in Automotive at The Devlin headlines a small, focused week, plus a Friday mixer, a PCB workshop and a developer coffee morning.
Dublin's week is small — four events — but it has a spine, and that spine is AI colliding with the physical world. A talk on AI reshaping the car industry, a hands-on evening turning circuit sketches into real boards, and the regular rooms where the people building all of it swap notes. This is a week to go deep rather than wide: pick the one that matches what you are working on, and give it your full evening.
Theme of the week: AI meets the real world
The anchor is the AI in Automotive Event (Monday 17 August, 20:00, The Devlin), run by Automotive Agent Systems on how AI is reshaping the automotive industry — from the software inside the car to the systems around it. This is a paid, ticketed event (around €49.99). One correction worth flagging up front: our own listing currently shows it as free, and that is wrong — treat it as a paid ticket and budget accordingly. For anyone working at the intersection of machine learning and hardware, mobility, or industrial systems, it is the most focused hour on the Dublin board this week.
Pair that with the week's builder session and you have a proper theme: AI is not just a chatbot demo this week in Dublin, it is going into cars and onto circuit boards. It is a good reminder of what makes Dublin's scene tick — the global names and their R&D sit right next to a hackerspace crowd soldering their own boards, and both turn up in the same week's listings. If you want to understand where a lot of this technology actually gets built, it is closer to the bench than the boardroom.
Who should go where
Builders and engineers. Your week is the strong one. The AI in Automotive Event on Monday is squarely aimed at you if you work anywhere near ML and hardware — just remember it is a paid ticket. And Wednesday's Coffee, Code, and Conversations | Dublin Developer Meetup (19 August, 09:30, Surge Coffee, free), run by DocTwil, is the low-effort, high-value option: an early-morning coworking-and-coffee session where developers get an hour of focused company before the day starts. Bring a laptop and a task.
Founders, sales and the generally sociable. The Dublin Tech Mixer and Social (Friday 14 August, 19:30, The Bleeding Horse, €3) is the long-running Friday afterwork mixer covering tech, AI, data and IT. It is cheap, it is reliable, and it is where you go to end the week among people who do what you do. If you only have one social evening this week, this is it.
Investors. Be honest — this is a quiet week for dealflow rooms in Dublin. There is no demo day or pitch night on the board. Use the time to talk to builders directly: the AI in Automotive crowd on Monday is where the interesting technical conversations will be.
Hidden gem: build a real circuit board
The one we would nudge you towards is PCB Design from Scratch: From Schematic to Finished Board (Friday 14 August, 20:30, TOG Hackerspace, free). It is exactly what it says: a hands-on walk from schematic to a finished printed circuit board, taking a breadboard project all the way to something you could actually manufacture. This is the kind of session that never trends but quietly levels up anyone who makes hardware — the gap between "it works on a breadboard" and "it is a real board" is where a lot of side projects die, and this evening is about crossing it. Free, practical, and run by TOG's own community of makers. If you build physical things, or want to, clear your Friday night for it.
Worth knowing
The AI in Automotive price. Repeating it because it matters: some listings (including ours, which we are correcting) show this event as free. It is not — it is a paid ticket at roughly €49.99. Do not turn up expecting to walk in without one.
Morning Grind is back and growing. The early-morning Dublin networking series is active again — organiser Atilla has spun up a WhatsApp community around it, and the next Morning Grind is on 22 August at Coffeeangel on Shelbourne Road, Dublin 4. Just outside this week's window, but worth putting in the diary now if pre-work networking is your thing.
Fridays at Dogpatch. Superteam Ireland runs a weekly Talent Hub every Friday at Dogpatch Labs — a standing drop-in for people looking to work in or around the ecosystem. Not on our event board, but a useful regular to know about.
That is the week — compact, technical, and honest about where the value is. Browse everything on the Dublin listings, and if you are running something we should be covering, tell us. The best way to get Dublin's calendar looking full is to send us what we are missing.