Manchester — Week of 10 Aug 2026

Bruntwood SciTech's annual Female Founders North summer social returns to the terrace at Neo — a relaxed, informal evening of drinks, nibbles and networking for female founders, entrepreneurs and allies across tech, digital and innovation. Female Founders North has run in Leeds for over three years and in Manchester for a year, connecting women building tech and digital businesses. Delivered in partnership with The Whole Point and FemTech Up North. One place per company; allies welcome.

Dot Net North's August meetup takes on a common misconception: that machine learning has to be done in Python. Simon Painter walks through solving Kaggle's classic Titanic survival challenge end-to-end using Visual Studio, C# and ML.NET — showing that you can produce high-quality ML results without leaving the .NET stack. A practical, code-along evening for .NET developers curious about applied machine learning, held at the Department Bonded Warehouse in Castlefield.

Network One brings together Manchester's AI community for a relaxed, no-pressure evening of networking. Founders, product builders, developers, investors and tech professionals working on or curious about AI meet to swap ideas and make new connections — no pitches, no panels, just conversation over a welcome drink. Part of Network One's recurring Manchester series (which also runs HealthTech, Fintech and Cybersecurity editions).

Venture Cafe Manchester's weekly Thursday Gathering asks how we build a future where commercial success and community impact go hand in hand. Social value is no longer a CSR checkbox but a driver of funding, procurement and cross-sector partnership. As a neutral ecosystem convener, Venture Cafe brings together mission-driven founders, public-sector buyers, procurement leads and investors to break down silos and spark practical collaboration across Greater Manchester. Free, open and inclusive; at SISTER, Renold Building.

Manchester's data and tech communities come together for a summer social hosted by HER+Data MCR alongside Open Data MCR, PyData MCR and Queer in Tech. An informal evening to connect and network with data professionals, data scientists, engineers and students, and to hear what each of these community groups is working on. Venue, food and drinks generously provided by Kraken. Everyone welcome.

Manchester Digital's Digital Her Summer Social, hosted by CTI Digital, is an evening for women and gender-nonconforming professionals working in, entering or exploring Greater Manchester's digital and tech sector. Three women from business leadership and software engineering share honest perspectives on building a tech career, leading through change and how AI adoption is starting to reshape their roles, teams and organisations. Not a technical AI session or a formal panel, but an open conversation followed by time to connect across the Digital Her community. Free.

NetMCR — 'networking for networkers' — is Manchester's long-running monthly social for the city's web, digital and tech community, held on the second Thursday of the month downstairs at Northern Monk's Manchester refectory in the Northern Quarter. A relaxed, welcoming get-together for developers, designers, agency folk and anyone working in Manchester's digital scene. Joining details are sent via the NetMCR mailing list.