Edinburgh — Week of 9 Nov 2026

A facilitated morning session at The Melting Pot on the trends currently affecting attendees' work.

A full-day industry conference on Scotland's solar and battery storage pipeline, covering domestic rooftops and home batteries through commercial and industrial installations to utility-scale projects, with the policy and investment conditions attached to each. Run by Solar Energy UK and hosted by its Solar Energy Scotland arm, 09:00 to 17:00 at the COSLA Conference Centre in Haymarket. The organisers are assembling industry leaders, policymakers, investors and local authorities. The speaker list was not published at the time of writing and ticket prices are not shown on the registration page. Why go: this is where Scottish solar and storage deployment gets negotiated — grid connections, planning, procurement — rather than discussed in the abstract. Best for cleantech founders, energy developers and investors who need the policy side and the buyer side in one day. Less useful if you came for technical depth.

A three-hour pitching workshop at the Royal Bank Accelerator on Princes Street, the sixth session in its 12-week Funding Accelerator programme. You can come to this one alone without signing up for the full series. The agenda covers storytelling principles for a memorable pitch, the ingredients every pitch needs, practical exercises on message and structure, and real founder stories. It ends with a Pitch Club slot where you practise delivery and get feedback. It runs 9:30 to 12:30 and the speaker is still to be confirmed. The listing doesn't show a price. Why go: it's hands-on, not a talk. If you've got a pitch to give in the next few months, you leave having said it out loud to a room and heard what lands. Best for early-stage founders pitching for funding.

A 30-minute Python seminar from JetBrains for Heriot-Watt's computing society, room EM 3.06, followed by a hands-on workshop in the Linux Lab (EM 2.50) from 13:45 with pizza, and a JetBrains stall on the HW bridge 13:00–14:30. Aimed at HW CompSoc members.

with Graeme Carruth (Investment Solutions Lead, Scottish Enterprise) · Dave Kelly (CEO, 2i)

Meet the Investors is techUK's free series for UK tech SMEs working out how to fund their next stage. The Edinburgh edition runs 14:00 to 17:00 in central Edinburgh; the exact venue isn't published. Graeme Carruth of Scottish Enterprise covers the investment landscape and Dave Kelly, CEO of 2i, tells a scale-up story. A 45-minute panel follows with investors from Ascension, IW Capital, Foresight Group, Maven Capital Partners, KPMG High Growth Ventures and HSBC, then an hour of networking. Why go: six funders in one room is rare in Edinburgh. Best for founders actively raising or preparing a round.

A Data Lab community session on building data visualisations by directing AI agents rather than writing the charting code. Listed from the Data Lab community calendar; registration is on its members platform, which requires an account, and the venue is not published on the public listing.

with Dmitriy Fedoryshchev (Lead Software Engineer, Independent)

Dmitriy Fedoryshchev, a lead software engineer, on how to tell whether agent-written code is making a codebase safer or riskier. His case study is modernising a 600-table, 21TB legacy core into microservices — the fifth attempt after four that failed — with a squad that went AI-native on a custom multi-agent system under one rule: only merge code you can explain. He also covers turning the rules the agent kept breaking into checks it cannot skip, built into his own open-source tooling. Tenth edition of the TechTalks Edinburgh series, at CodeBase on Castle Terrace. Doors 18:00 with pizza and drinks, opening talk 18:30, main talk 18:40, Q&A 19:30, pub afterwards. Free, 100 places on Meetup. Partners include CodeBase and Scottish Technology Club. Why go: the most concrete Edinburgh talk this autumn on AI-generated code in a real legacy migration rather than a demo repo. Best for engineers and tech leads deciding how far to let agents into production.

GameDevEd's November social for Edinburgh game developers, one of a fortnightly run of informal Tuesday evenings for the city's games community. Ground floor of OX184 on the Cowgate, at the grid of four tables by the western entrance, usually with the group's logo on the table. 18:00 to 21:00, free, no ticket. All stages and disciplines — studio staff, indies, students, artists, audio and community people. Bring a build or a video if you have one and you will get an audience; the hosts are explicit that nobody has to drink, and plenty of the group eat dinner instead. Hosted by Ewan Fisher and Fallible, with a Discord for the wider local gamedev calendar. Why go: games hiring and collaboration in Scotland runs almost entirely on who people know, and this is the most regular room in Edinburgh where that happens. Best for anyone working in or trying to get into games.

Forest Research's SciFor26 conference in Edinburgh, covering forest science, data and applied research. Venue details are published on the conference site.

A mid-morning business networking session run by Scottish National Network at Platform 5 in Haymarket. Currently showing as sold out on Eventbrite. The organiser does not state a price on the listing.

An edition of the HUSTLE multi-city entrepreneur networking series, at O'Neills on Hunter Square. Drop-in format, no speakers listed. The organiser does not state a price on the listing.

Elle & Co's social media session for reluctant small businesses, November date.

Edinburgh Tech Network's monthly evening drinks for people working in tech — engineers, product managers, designers, UX. No talks, no slides, no agenda; the whole format is conversation in a pub. From 19:00 at The Slug and Lettuce on George Street, free, RSVP on Meetup. It runs on a repeating Wednesday pattern, so there is another one along shortly if you miss it. The group is one of the larger general tech networks in the city and the room is mixed by discipline and seniority rather than organised around a stack. Why go: it is the lowest-effort way to meet people in Edinburgh tech — no ticket, no talk to sit through, and you can leave after twenty minutes. Best if you have just moved to the city or are between roles; less useful if you want substance on a specific technical topic.

A CPD breakfast for architects and landscape architects, run jointly by the RIAS and the Landscape Institute Scotland, on shared climate and biodiversity goals.

An hour of unstructured coffee networking for founders and small business owners in the New Town. No pitches or speeches.

Founders Coffee Club is a monthly coffee morning for founders at Jamaica Yard, 3 Jamaica St, EH3. No speeches, no presentations, no selling. You turn up, get introduced to someone on arrival and talk. Founders only. Registration goes through Luma and needs host approval. The ticket also covers coworking at Jamaica Yard for the rest of the day, so you can stay and work after the 10:00 start. Why go: a low-pressure hour to meet other Edinburgh founders without a pitch in the way. Best for early-stage founders who work alone and want peers, not for anyone hunting investors or customers.

A lunchtime session at A&DS:SpACE on where generative AI is genuinely changing architectural practice — massing studies, specification, planning documentation — and where it is still marketing. Run by Architecture and Design Scotland, and a good example of AI applied to a specific professional discipline rather than discussed in the abstract.

A guided lunchtime tour of the Mapping the Anthropocene exhibition at Inspace with the curatorial team.

The University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics runs an afternoon fair for prospective PhD applicants at the Informatics Forum: research groups, supervisors and funding routes in one room. Free, 13:00 to 16:00.

The weekly Venture Cafe Edinburgh Thursday Gathering at the Edinburgh Futures Institute on Lauriston Place — the thirty-second edition. Free, no ticket and no application needed. Doors from 17:00, Connection Collider and parallel sessions through the evening, open networking floor to around 20:00. The week's programme is published on the Venture Cafe community site closer to the date. Edinburgh's edition has run continuously since April 2026 and draws founders, university researchers, investors and the city's support organisations without anyone needing a particular reason to be there. Why go: a standing weekly slot does more for a network than an occasional good event, because you can come back the following week with the person you were told to meet. Best for founders and operators who want unstructured time with the ecosystem rather than a panel.

with James Buchan (Founder and CEO, ePass) · Tirtho Dasgupta (Founder, Nirmanaa)

UX Edinburgh marks World Usability Day with two founders who have built public-good products, talking about what it actually took. James Buchan, founder and CEO of ePass, traces the route from a CivTech challenge to national government infrastructure: doing discovery when every council works differently, designing for citizens, businesses, licensing officers and policy teams at once, and building one common component that 160+ licence types can configure. Tirtho Dasgupta, founder of Nirmanaa, built an accessibility co-pilot solo in nine weeks and talks about designing for uncertainty rather than certainty. Doors 17:15, talks from 17:45, close 19:30, at CodeBase. Free. Why go: both talks are first-hand delivery stories rather than theory, and the government-services one is material you rarely hear outside closed service-design circles. Best for designers, researchers and product people, and anyone working on public-sector digital in Scotland.

OutGeekWomen's Edinburgh evening at The Melting Pot on Calton Road, with short talks and open networking for women working in technology. The group describes itself as built for women in tech and open to anyone who wants in, and runs the same format across several UK cities. The Edinburgh edition is free, starts at 18:00 and runs to about 20:30, with the talks kept short so most of the evening is conversation. The Melting Pot is a co-working space rather than a bar, which keeps the room usable for actually talking. Why go: Edinburgh's technical meetups skew heavily male and this is the city's most consistent counterweight — a room where the networking is the programme rather than an afterthought. Best for women working in engineering, data, product and design, and for anyone recruiting into those teams who wants to meet people outside their referral network.

The employer ticket for OutGeekWomen's Edinburgh event. The organisers were still seeking a host venue at the time of listing, so the location is confirmed to ticket holders.

with Max Tatton-Brown (Host, Claude Ambassador, Claude Community)

The first Anthropic-backed Claude meetup in Scotland: an evening for people building with Claude Code and agents, technical or not. CreateFuture, CodeBase and Techscaler are hosting it in Edinburgh. Max Tatton-Brown, one of the first global Claude Ambassadors, runs it. Arrivals and food from 17:30, then a panel Q&A around 18:15 with an Ambassador who gets early access to new features. After that the room splits into zones: an open-mic room where you get five minutes on the HDMI to show what you're building, a helpdesk for people who are stuck or haven't started, and a chat area. Free, but registration shows sold out, so join the waitlist. The exact venue is shared on registration. Why go: it's the first room in Edinburgh built around showing real agent work rather than talking about AI in general. Go if you're shipping with Claude Code or want to see what others are building with it.

First evening of a new security networking series for Scotland's security community, run by AmEliz Consulting with support from CIISec. No stands, no sales pitches: a welcome drink, a short security and threat update with Scottish relevance, a guest speaker (not yet named), then networking. Open to practitioners, leaders, public sector, academics and students. 18+.

The November edition of OutGeekWomen's Edinburgh meet-up at The Melting Pot — built for women in tech and open to anyone who wants in.

with Dr Andy Bannister (Speaker, )

An evening discussion led by Dr Andy Bannister on how Christians working in healthcare should think about artificial intelligence, hosted by the Christian Medical Fellowship at Ps & Gs Church on Broughton Street.

A six-hour co-working day at CodeBase for people building digital products: a new MVP, UX work, the marketing outreach you keep deferring. Run by new stacks, the Edinburgh nocode, visual development and AI community. There is no programme. No presentations, no sponsored lunch, no pitching. Ambient music and a room of other people working on their own thing, with the implicit deal that you turn up and move something forward. Free, 10:00 to 16:00. The door is locked, so buzz it. Why go: Edinburgh has plenty of evening talks and very few long daytime blocks where founders sit and build alongside each other. If your side project only moves when someone else is in the room, this is the format. Best for solo founders, indie builders and anyone with something half-finished.

Edindies is Edinburgh's indie game development community, meeting every Saturday afternoon at LEVELS for co-working, playtesting and chat. Drop in with whatever you are building.