Bristol — Week of 7 Sep 2026

An open evening for founders, creators and freelancers who would rather talk than pitch. Run by Rebellious Co as their regular Bristol gathering.

Three days of talks, workshops and poster sessions on human-centred AI, run by the University of Bristol's Interactive AI and Practice-Oriented AI CDTs. Programme spans sociotechnical alignment, citizen-centric AI, explainability, NeuroAI and AI ethics.

Lunchtime webinar with Paul King of Towards Better on how startup fundraising actually works behind the pitch deck. Online, run by the Bristol Rebel Meetups community.

Informal drinks for freelancers across Bristol's creative and digital sector, run by the region's creative industries membership body.

CodeHub Bristol's fortnightly social coding session — bring a side project, a coding challenge or a half-finished idea and work on it alongside other developers. All experience levels; arrive by 18:30 before reception closes.

The South West data community's monthly bar social — no talks, no agenda, just people who work with data. Second Tuesday of the month at the Watershed.

A monthly guided walk through The Sheds, the innovation hub housing Bristol Digital Futures Institute and MyWorld. Useful if you want to know what labs and production facilities the city actually has.

Data Bristol's September evening at iO Associates on St Bartholomew's House, sponsored and hosted by the tech recruitment specialists. Two sessions: an introduction to fabric-toolbox and why it matters if you work in the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem, and a walkthrough of Data API Builder for standing up database APIs quickly. Doors and networking from 18:00, talks from 18:30. Aimed at data engineers, analytics engineers and BI developers. Free.

Bristol's long-running PHP user group meets for two talks: Mike Page on raising the profile of PHP today, and Ade on "Vibing with Pikachu". Pizza, drinks and a pub afterwards.

Deeptech founder spotlight on Albotherm, with the origin story and live demonstrations of the product, followed by networking among Future Space's science park tenants.

Coffee and co-working for founders and small business owners in Runway East's Bristol startup space. Low-key drop-in format.

Matt Dowse and Mary Stevens on building demonstrators for AI at a responsible, appropriate scale — AI that stays inside planetary boundaries. Lunchtime talk with discussion, free but book ahead.

Dr Matthew Jones on the tactics that keep founding teams working — role clarity, equity conversations and the disagreements worth having early. Online session from the Bristol Rebel Meetups community.

Bristol's young entrepreneur community swaps the meeting room for a sauna, a swim and an ice bath, then coffee. £15 cash on the day.