SoCal - Canadian Queer Tech Express: Santa Monica
- Date
- 2024-07-29
- Location
- Santa Monica, CA, USA
- Host
- Canadian Consulate Calendar
About this event
If you’re a queer person working in tech, adjacent to tech, or simply curious about the people shaping it, this Santa Monica stop of the SoCal - Canadian Queer Tech Express is built for you. It’s a chance to step out from behind the screen, meet peers face-to-face, and spend an afternoon in a room where community, ambition, and real conversation can coexist. About the Event This meetup brings together queer people connected to tech for an in-person gathering in Santa Monica. The focus is simple: create space for people to connect across roles, experience levels, and paths into the industry, while building stronger ties between community and professional life. The title signals something broader than a standard networking event. This is part social, part meetup, and part professional community-building moment. Whether you identify more with the “tech” side, the “community” side, or both, the event is designed to make it easier to find common ground with people who understand the particular mix of creativity, challenge, and identity that often comes with queer life in and around tech. You should expect a friendly, conversational format rather than a rigid conference setup. That means room for introductions, organic discussions, and the kind of exchanges that often lead to future coffee chats, collaborations, referrals, and friendships. The value here is not just in who’s in the room, but in the quality of the connections you can make when the environment is intentionally welcoming. Santa Monica is also an especially fitting setting for this kind of gathering: accessible, active, and closely tied to wider Southern California tech and creative networks. Meeting in person matters. It gives people a chance to move beyond online profiles and short messages and actually get a read on one another as humans. What to Expect Expect a relaxed but purposeful meetup atmosphere. This is the kind of event where you can arrive ready to introduce yourself, share what you’re working on, and ask other people what’s energizing them right now. Conversations may naturally move between topics like career growth, startups, product work, engineering, design, freelancing, hiring, community organizing, and navigating queer identity in professional spaces. A likely rhythm for the afternoon includes informal arrival and mingling, small-group conversations, and open networking. Because this is a social and community-centered gathering, there’s room for both practical exchange and personal connection. You do not need a polished pitch. What helps most is curiosity, openness, and a willingness to talk with people outside your usual circle. You can also expect a mix of attendee goals, including: Meeting other queer people in tech nearby Expanding your local and cross-border professional network Finding peers who understand your career context Learning how others are building community in the industry Discovering new opportunities for collaboration, mentorship, or support This is not only for extroverts or for people who already “know everyone.” Good meetups make it easy to join at your own pace, and the best conversations often start with something small and specific: what you do, what brought you there, or what kind of connection you’re hoping to make. Why Attend There’s a real difference between generic networking and being in a room where you don’t have to explain core parts of yourself first. For queer people in tech, that difference can lower the barrier to meaningful conversation fast. You can spend less energy translating your experience and more energy talking about ideas, work, goals, and the kinds of relationships you want to build. Attending can help you strengthen both your sense of belonging and your professional momentum. You might meet someone on a similar path, someone a few steps ahead, or someone from a completely different corner of tech whose perspective opens up a new direction for you. These are often the connections that make a local scene feel more navigable and less isolating. This event is also valuable if you care about community as much as career. Tech can be fast-moving and transactional; spaces like this create room for a different pace and a different tone. They make it possible to build networks that are not only useful, but durable. A few concrete reasons people attend events like this: To turn online connections into real-world relationships To meet people outside their company or immediate role To get unstuck in career questions through candid conversation To find queer peers, mentors, collaborators, and friends To spend time in a professional space that feels more human Practical Details This is an in-person event taking place in Santa Monica, USA on Monday, July 29 at 1:00 PM PDT. Because it’s scheduled in the early afternoon, it works well for people who can step out for a midday community event, are visiting the area, or want to make this part of a broader day in Santa Monica. Plan to arrive on time so you can settle in and meet people from the start. Early arrivals often have an easier time making introductions before conversations naturally spread across the room. If you’re coming solo, that can be a real advantage. A few practical ways to prepare: Bring a clear one- or two-sentence introduction about what you do or what you’re interested in Think about the kinds of people you’d most like to meet Be ready to exchange contact details with people you want to follow up with Dress in a way that feels comfortable, confident, and appropriate for a casual professional meetup Most of all, come ready to participate. You do not need to be at a certain title, company, or stage of career to belong here. If you want stronger ties to queer community in tech and you value meeting people in person, this Santa Monica gathering is a solid place to start.
Who should attend
This will feel especially relevant if you want your networking to be more personal, more grounded, and more connected to queer community. - You work in **tech** in any capacity, including engineering, product, design, data, operations, marketing, founder roles, or other adjacent paths, and you want to meet peers in person. - You’re **queer and looking for community** that understands both your professional world and your identity without making you explain either from scratch. - You’re new to **Southern California**, visiting Santa Monica, or trying to build a stronger local network beyond your current workplace. - You want a **lower-pressure alternative to formal industry events**, where conversation can be real, useful, and social at the same time. - You’re exploring your next move, looking for collaborators, seeking mentorship, or simply trying to broaden the circle of people you know in and around tech. - You’ve been wanting to attend more community events but don’t need a huge production; you just want the right room, the right people, and a reason to show up. If that sounds like the kind of afternoon you’d actually be glad you made time for, this meetup is likely a strong fit.