A Home for Windsor's Tech Community


February 2023 at Hackforge

Intro to Lakehouse Architecture

Thursday, February 9th @ 6pm
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Join special guest speaker Deepak Kaushik for a rundown of Azure Lakehouse. This modern data management architecture combines the cost-efficiency, scale, and flexibility features of a data lake with the data and transaction management capabilities of a data warehouse.

In this one-hour session, Deepak will cover:

  • Concept
  • Demo
  • Real time challenges
  • Q/A

This virtual event takes place on Thursday, February 9th at 6pm. Register now via Zoom to reserve your spot.

Speaker Bio:

Deepak is a Microsoft Azure MVP. His breadth and depth of knowledge have enabled him to lead the development of various products/solutions around Microsoft Azure. Deepak is a knowledgeable and sought-after speaker within IT circles and consulted regularly by companies formulating their Cloud strategies.

Deepak on Linkedin

Twitter: @ThinkforDeepak

https://deepak-kaushik.com/

Border City Data: Behind-the-Scenes of ADUSearch

Monday, Februatry 13th @ 6pm
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Launching in early February, ADUSearch is a data-driven application intended to empower property owners, industry professionals, policymakers, non-profit housing providers, and researchers to see the potential of detached ADUs in Canadian municipalities.

In this edition of Border City Data, host Doug Sartori will be joined by ADUSearch leadership and GIS researchers to discuss how the application was made. Attendees will get the chance to see some of the ArcGIS processes that went into creating the geodata that drives the project, as well as how Doug and his team at Parallel 42 Systems turned that data into an interactive web app. Attendees will have a chance to ask questions at the end of the session.

This virtual event will take place via Zoom on Monday, February 13th from 6 – 7:30 pm. There is no cost to attend and everyone is welcome.

OSM Windsor-Essex: Croissants & Cartography

Thursday, Februatry 16th @ 6pm
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Come meet other local mappers in person at this low-key event. Bring your laptop and/or favourite mobile editing app and do some collaborative mapping!

This is a great opportunity to make connections in the OSM community as well as to ask questions and get advice from other active OSM contributors. Whether you’re brand new or well-seasoned, we’d love to have you out!

Serratore Bistro-Café (98 University Ave, W.) is new to Windsor’s downtown, so this is also a great chance to check them out! We recommend the chocolate croissant, but also hear great things about their paninis.We’ll be hanging out from 6 – 8pm. Drop in for a quick visit or stay the whole time – however you prefer!

AWS Re:Invent Re:Cap

Tuesday, January 21st @ 6:30pm
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AWS Re:Invent took place between November 28 and December 2, 2022 in Las Vegas. For those who were unable to make the trip, the Windsor AWS User Group is going to be rehashing everything on Tuesday, February 21st.

Hear about news and updates in the world of Amazon Web Services, and connect with other AWS users at this free, virtual event.

  • 6:30 PM – 6:45 PM Meet and greet
  • 6:45 PM – 7:45 RE:CAP – brief overview of all cool technologies introduced at RE:INVENT
  • 7:45 PM – 8:00 PM – Post event discussion, Q&A, career advice, project advice, industry trends, anything AWS related, etc

We’ll be posting a Chime link and the AWS speaker shortly – follow the Linkedin Event for all the latest updates.

Winfosec: OWASP Top 10 Session 4: Insecure design

Friday, February 24th @ 7pm
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Join us to learn about a new entrant into the OWASP list: Insecure Design. We’ll look at common mistakes made in the design of software that can affect security, and give advice on what to do instead.

This is our fourth session on OWASP Top 10 – visit our Youtube channel to review past events.

This is a virtual event that will be held via Zoom.


Message from the Chair

It’s great to be back as part of the Hackforge governance team. We’ve met a couple times since the Annual General Meeting. We’re currently working on aligning the Hackforge mission and strategy with the needs of the community. One of the first changes we’ve decided to make is an end to membership fees. Hackforge has financial stability and modest expenses, so we can continue to deliver our programming without asking our members to contribute monthly. From now on, we’ll consider anyone who has donated money to the organization or volunteered their time for Hackforge in any capacity in the previous twelve months as a member with standing to vote at our Annual General Meetings.


With that in mind I’d like to encourage folks reading this message to consider volunteering for Hackforge in 2023. We can scale your contribution to fit your available time. Whether you want to organize a whole interest group or help us out with programming once in a while, there is a volunteer role that will fit your skill set and schedule. Please touch base with Lauren or a board member if you want to learn more.

— Doug Sartori, Chair of the Hackforge Board of Directors


December 2022 at Hackforge

OSM Windsor-Essex: Working with GPS Traces

Thursday, December 8th @ 7pm
UPDATE! Online Only!
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When adding your own data to OpenStreetMap, there are alternatives to drawing lines by hand – such as GPS traces!

In this month’s meetup, we’ll be taking a pre-recorded GPS trace and using it to improve the data for a local park. Our editing platform will be JOSM, so if you’re new to the system and missed October’s event it is highly recommended you check out the recording.

Artificial Intelligence for Board Games

Sunday, December 11th @ 72pm
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Doug is celebrating the holidays by taking a break from his usual SQL-based Border City data talks. This month, he’ll be walking through the basics of artificial intelligence for board games using combinatorial game theory!

Digital Twin: An Unreal Engine Project Revisited

Thursday, December 15th @ 6 pm
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Last presented back in February 2022, The digital twin project of Windsor & Detroit is an initiative to build an advanced urban planning tool that is accessible to the community.

Spearheaded by Michael Hoppe, Creative Director of Geopogo in San Francisco, California, this project is creating a powerful public tool that combines 3D LiDAR scan data, civic data layers, and SimCity-like features to empower community groups and design visionaries to realize their ideas for what Windsor can become.

The current iteration was created through partnerships with students from St. Clair College in Windsor and UCBerkeley in California. Now, the developers are inviting YOU to become part of this unique and ambitious project.

The Geopogo team is looking for data science, computer science,  3D animators, and Unreal Engine experts to join the cause. We are also looking for talented engineers that are interested in new AI generative tools to explore new frontiers of civic design, AI, and data. 

Tune in on Thursday, December 15th at 6pm EST to learn about big updates on the Digital Twin of Windsor and Detroit platform, and how you can get involved.


November 2022 at Hackforge

WINFOSEC: OWASP Top 10 Session 2: Broken Access Controls

Wednesday, November 23rd @ 7pm
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In our second session on the OWASP Top 10 we’ll take a look at their number one security issue: broken access control.

Between 2017 and 2021, broken access control jumped from number five to number one of OWASP’s top ten most critical security risks. Join this event to learn what this risk is and how you can write code that mitigates it.

We’ll also take a quick look at cross site scripting (XSS).

Register via Zoom to join this free session.

Interested in checking out past Winfosec events? Visit the Hackforge youtube channel for recordings.

Border City Data: Working with Census Data

Tuesday, November 29 @ 6pm
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The final major release of the 2021 census information is happening on November 30th! To celebrate the release of all of this information into the makeup of Canada, Border City Data is holding a special event focused on working with these massive data sets. Join host and data professional Doug Sartori on Tuesday, November 29th to walk through

  • accessing census data through Statistics Canada
  • tips, tricks, and tools for analysis
  • making useful visualizations from census data

In addition to being a technical how-to, this event will teach you how to think about the questions you would like to answer with census data, which will enable you to make the most of the information at your disposal.

Register today for this free, virtual event!


Hackforge at Open Streets Windsor!

On Sunday, September 18th Hackforge will be participating in the city’s favourite street fair, Open Streets Windsor. This event, now in its seventh year, will be closing 8km of roadway between Sandwich Town and Ford City. With vehicular traffic prohibited, pedestrians, cyclists, and rollerbladers will take over!

In addition to promoting active transportation and healthy living, Open Streets helps to foster a sense of community. All along the route attendees will find booths and activities from various local businesses and organizations.

Hackforge will be located in the Healthy Communities Hub at the corner of Riverside and Caron. As part of our C3Tech initiative, we’ll be gathering community insight into the features of an ideal cycling route – the results of which will directly influence the routing algorithm for WindsorEssexCycling.ca. We’ll also have a sample of the routing system – a result of our last Hackathon! – available for everyone to test out.

Looking forward to seeing the city in the streets between 10 am 2 pm on September 18th!


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