Upcoming tech events in Des Moines

✨ Dev Days is a global, in-person community-led initiative taking place from September 1st - October 31st, 2026. The series brings together developers, enthusiasts, and local tech communities to explore the power of GitHub Copilot through practical, hands-on experiences.

Open to all developers, each session runs for approximately 2-3 hours and focuses on real-world workflows, hands-on activities, and workshops centered on GitHub Copilot in the Copilot app and the CLI.

Disclaimer: this event utilizes AI credits. While the workshops can be completed with Copilot Free, it will take up a large amount of those credits, so ensure you're preserving where makes sense knowing you'll be attending this event.

Code of Conduct

We are committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all participants. Please review the event Code of Conduct before attending.

👉 Event Code of Conduct: https://github.com/github/dev-days/blob/main/EVENT_CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md (opens in new tab)

As AI and advanced analytics capabilities continue to expand, many organizations are looking for ways to deliver greater business impact while helping their teams develop broader skills and stronger collaboration practices.

Principal Financial has been experimenting with a model that brings business intelligence analysts, analytics engineers, and data scientists together to work as an integrated team on shared business challenges. While still early in the journey, they are already seeing changes in how work gets done, how knowledge is shared, and how individuals approach problem-solving.
This session would explore:

* Why we chose to create cross-disciplinary teams.
* How the model works in practice.
* The role of T-shaped learning in developing more adaptable analytics professionals.
* How collaboration between BI, analytics engineering, and data science influences solution design and delivery.
* Examples of knowledge transfer and skill development occurring across disciplines.
* Early lessons learned, successes, and challenges.
* Observed changes in team behaviors, decision-making, and ownership.
* How integrated teams may help organizations scale AI and advanced analytics capabilities more effectively rate with peers.

What happens when a software developer decides to build a physical product?

In this session, Levi Rosol will share the story behind GridSmith—a modular tabletop terrain system that started as a personal frustration with existing products and evolved into a real business. Along the way, AI became much more than a coding assistant. It became a design partner, a CAD tutor, a rubber duck, a technical writer, a marketing assistant, and an endless source of ideas.

We'll explore the entire journey: identifying the problem worth solving, designing hundreds of iterations of a physical product, learning OpenSCAD through AI-assisted development, optimizing for 3D printing and manufacturing, building an e-commerce website through "vibe coding," and launching a product that people can actually buy.

This isn't a session about replacing developers with AI. It's about how modern AI tools dramatically lower the barrier between an idea and a finished product, allowing a single person to wear the hats of engineer, product designer, manufacturer, and entrepreneur.

Whether you're a developer, maker, or simply curious about what AI can enable, you'll leave with practical insights, honest lessons learned, and hopefully the confidence to start building that idea you've been putting off.

Join us for the next DSM AI Group!
5:30 - 6:00 - Socializing/Networking
6:00 - Speaker begins

CIJUG returns on Thursday, October 22nd from 5:30 to 7pm for a Lightning Talks night at Source Allies.

Lightning talks are a chance to hear several quick presentations, giving everyone exposure to a variety of ideas, technologies, and real-world experiences. The format keeps the evening fast-paced while creating plenty of opportunities to discover something new.

This month's speakers include Nathan Halko, folks from Des Moines Charity Hackathons, Adam Horning as well as Ben DeMouth from Source Allies. Following the presentations, there will be time for questions, discussion, and conversation with the speakers and other members of the Java community.

Whether you're looking for useful takeaways, new perspectives, or simply an opportunity to connect with fellow practitioners, Lightning Talks are a great way to spend an evening with the local tech peers, and learn at lightning speed!

Hosted in person at Source Allies. RSVP so we can get a head count! Food/Drinks provided.

Pyowa returns to Source Allies on Tuesday, October 27th from 5:30–7pm with Dave Keller presenting a hands-on look at fraud detection, machine learning, and the importance of questioning results that seem a little too good.

In this session, Dave will explore his work using the Elliptic Bitcoin transaction dataset to investigate fraud detection. When his initial models produced near-perfect performance, it raised an important question: was the model actually learning meaningful patterns, or was data leakage influencing the results?

Dave will walk through rebuilding the experiment with a temporal train/validation/test split and establishing logistic regression and Random Forest baselines. He’ll also cover how statistical techniques including Spearman correlation, mutual information, and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests helped investigate relationships between features and time.

Rather than chasing the highest possible model score, this talk is about questioning results, testing alternative explanations, and understanding what the evidence does and does not support.

Hosted at Source Allies. Food and drinks will be provided.

Speaker Bio: Dave is a court researcher and aspiring data scientist with a background in mathematics. He is currently pursuing the MITx MicroMasters in Statistics and Data Science and develops projects focused on machine learning, fraud detection, graph analytics, and Python.

Human in the Loop: Orchestrating Agents for Safety

As AI agents take on more complex tasks and workflows, where and how should people remain part of the process?
Join DevOpsDSM on Wednesday, October 28th for Ethan Spoestra’s presentation, “Human in the Loop: Orchestrating Agents for Safety.”

The session will explore the intersection of AI agents, orchestration, human involvement, and safety, with a focus on the role people can play as increasingly capable agents become part of software and operational workflows.

Come learn, ask questions, and continue the conversation with the tech community. DevOpsDSM meets from 6–7pm at Source Allies. Food and drinks will be provided.

Check out https://www.dsmwebgeeks.com/ (opens in new tab) for details on this and all future events.

We meet the second Monday of every month. Our topics focus on new trends and techniques in web development.

Let's get together virtually before Re: Invent.

Is anyone going who wants to meet up there?

Are there specific sessions you are excited about?

Join us for the final Hardware Hangout of the 2026 season! This networking event brings together embedded developers, electronics engineers, hobbyists, and industry supporters for technical discussions and community building. The topic for November is embedded in motion. How embedded systems are being used in, on, and around vehicles of all kinds. From cars and trucks to tractors, construction equipment, and everything in between, embedded systems are powering the vehicles we rely on every day.

Share your stories, tips, and questions with the group! Have an idea for what Iowans of Things could do next year? We’d love to hear it! We’re always looking for new ways to connect, learn, and strengthen Iowa’s embedded technology community.

Event Highlights

• Technical Talk: Embedded in Motion: Share your projects and experiences using embedded systems in, on, and around vehicles of all kinds!
• Networking: Mingle with like-minded individuals, share experiences, and forge valuable connections
• Project Share: Bring your latest projects or ideas to spur conversations, or simply be inspired by others. Don’t worry, we won’t make anyone perform a show-and-tell!

Who Should Come?

• Embedded software developers
• Firmware developers
• Electronics and electrical engineers
• Electronics and robotics hobbyists
• Product designers
• Automation engineers and techs
• Supporters of the industry
• Those looking to work in or hire people in the industry

Event Agenda

• 4:30 - Arrive, park, grab refreshments
• 5:00 - Tech Talk & Open Discussion
• 5:45 - Share projects and mingle
• 6:30 - Wrap up and take off

Join us for the next DSM AI Group!

Topic and Speaker will be announced closer to the posted date.