Civic Groups Sydney

VIVID Sydney

An evening ride to enjoy the 7.30 pm Vivid Sydney Drone Show *Star-bound* followed by *Laser Lightfall*, the inaugural Vivid Sydney choreographed Laser Show and a free hourly nightly tour-de-force over Cockle Bay. Followed by a short ride around Barangaroo to Hickson Road to view the Sydney Opera House where the sails will be lit up with a major new work, *Opera Mundi* by renowned French multimedia artist Yann Nguema, known for his mesmerising projections onto significant buildings around the world. Distance : 21 km at a medium pace START AND FINISH Pioneers Memorial Park, Leichhardt **WHAT TO BRING :** Bike in good mechanical order, helmet, water, spare inner tube(s) and pump in case of puncture. Cyclists MUST have **good quality working front and rear lights**. Bring warm clothing. Riders must be financial for this year. First time riders may have a trial ride with us before joining ($10 a year) - please contact ride leaders before attending. **RIDE LEADER** : Laura 0439 901 613/Michael Gill 0418 498 797 **WEATHER**: Ride will be cancelled if there is significant rain. Call Ride Leaders if unsure.

🔥Asian Background Social: Lounge Asia Sydney (Easy English) 6pm

**⚠️ IMPORTANT: TONIGHT’S RULES ⚠️** **🎟️ NO TICKET = NO ENTRY** **(If you are on the WAITLIST, you cannot enter tonight.)** **🪑 SIT IF EMPTY** **Please take a seat if you see one to help create more space.** **📧 SHOW SCREEN AT DOOR** **Have your confirmation email/screen ready for Chris & Kev.** **NO WALK-INS. THANK YOU!** **“The perfect Saturday night to meet new friends in a warm, relaxed atmosphere”** **✨ 5,000+ Members have joined across Australia** **✨ Early RSVP FREE / Last-Minute Ticket $5** **✨ Relaxed & Friendly (Not a loud party, perfect for conversation)** **Why Join Us?** **First-timers welcome: About 70% of people are new every time!** **Easy to join alone: Most people arrive by themselves and leave with new friends.** **Language friendly: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese & English OK 🧋** **📍 WHEN & WHERE** **🗓 Every 2 weeks on Saturday** **🕕 6:00pm – 10:00pm** **📍 Harts Pub (The Rocks) Located in the heart of historic Sydney!** **🚶‍♂️ Super Easy Access:** **• 5 min walk from Circular Quay Station** **• 8 min walk from Wynyard Station** **Easy to drop by after exploring The Rocks!** **💰 Cost:** **Early RSVP FREE** **Last-Minute Ticket: $5** **⚠️ Limited spots available — we highly recommend reserving early.** **👉 HOW TO JOIN** **Please click “Join” on Meetup.** **Follow & DM us on Instagram: @_lounge_asia** **⚠️ HOUSE RULES & SAFETY POLICY** **To ensure a safe and comfortable environment for everyone, Lounge Asia has a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for the following behaviors:** **🚫 No Solicitation:** **Any form of business recruitment, MLM, religious proselytizing, or poaching is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.** **🚫 No Harassment:** **Unwanted pick-up activities, persistent pestering, or making others feel uncomfortable will not be tolerated.** **Action:** **Any attendee reported for misconduct will be removed immediately and banned from future events without warning.** **⚠️ IMPORTANT** **Photo ID Required:** **Passport or Driver’s License only (Student IDs NOT accepted).** **18+ only:** **The venue is a licensed bar, and ID checks are required under NSW law.** **🎁 BECOME A FOUNDING MEMBER (VIP)** **We are building an official app to connect our community safely!** **Join the VIP list for early access and priority invites to special parties.** **👉 [Join the VIP List here]** **https://forms.gle/T2KukvgEiGWEz3VR9** **━━━━━━━━━━━━━━** **初参加・一人参加も大歓迎です！** **혼자 오셔도 편하게 즐길 수 있어요!** **欢迎大家轻松交朋友！** **歡迎輕鬆認識新朋友！** **มาคนเดียวก็สนุกได้ครับ/ค่ะ** **Mọi người đều được chào đón!** **Welcome ang lahat!** **Semua dialu-alukan!** **Semua orang diterima dengan hangat!** **👥 Your Host:** **🎤 Chris – Your friendly Sydney host, ready to welcome you**

Code for Sydney - Monthly Hack Day

Code for Sydney is now running meetups every month. Code for Sydney is a volunteer civic innovation organization created by Sydney-area developers, designers, and activists with an interest in solving civic and social problems through the use of technology. During our monthly hack day we: \- brainstorm ideas around the theme \- propose a few solutions that we can work on together \- research and code the components of an MVP \- present what worked \(or didn't\) to your peers Together, we can make an impact on civic challenges and build a better city. Networking with fellow software engineers, designers and student/s welcome! If anyone would like to present a quick talk or propose a project idea, do talk to us! Also please do join the discussion on Discord https://discord.gg/wPmp25Xnm5

Agentic AI Unplugged: Running AI Agents at Scale

Agentic AI is moving fast, but what does it actually take to run agents securely, reliably, and at scale? For our next meetup, **PolarSeven** and **ClickHouse** are bringing together two practical talks exploring AI agents, real-world implementation, governance, security, and scale. **🎤 Hear from:** **Sumith Jitta, Head of Engineering @ Lawpath** The Harness Is the Moat: Running AI Agents at Scale **Muhammad Ali, Senior Solutions Architect @ ClickHouse** Governed and Secure Agents with LibreChat After the talks, stick around for networking, pizzas, and drinks with the local AWS, data, and tech community! 🍻🍕🤤 **Agenda:** 17:30 - Arrive & drinks 18:00 - Introductions 18:10 - Talk 1: *The Harness Is the Moat: Running AI Agents at Scale* Sumith Jitta, Head of Engineering @ Lawpath 18:40 - Talk 2: *Governed and Secure Agents with LibreChat* Muhammad Ali, Senior Solution Architect @ ClickHouse 19:10 - Networking, food, and drinks! 🍻🍕 **Event details:** 🗓️ Date: 24 June 2026 🕕 Time: 6:00 PM 📍 Location: Level 8/2 Market St, Sydney NSW 2000 *Please enter via Kent St to access the building.* RSVP now to save your spot! We can’t wait to see you there! Cheers, **The PolarSeven Team** [www.polarseven.com](http://www.polarseven.com/)

Kings Birthday Street Art and Sydney Park

Its time for the traditional Kings Birthday Holiday Monday ride through the Inner West, checking out some murals and a painting on the way to Sydney Park. This gentle paced ride of around 25km takes us through quiet back streets and cycleways. **Start and Finish place:** Pioneer Park Leichhardt **Start Time:** 8.15am for an 8.30am departure **Finish Time:** around 12.30pm. **Cycling fitness level:** very easy/\*\*EASY\*\*/medium/hard/very hard **Distance/ Speed:** \~25km [+270m]; with moving speed averaging 12-15kph **What You Need:** Bicycle in good working order, helmet & bike lock, water, spare tube, Opal Card in case you need to bail out early. This ride will begin with a few short stops at a some favourite street art wall murals on the way to Enmore where we will check out an interesting original artwork hidden in a local church. We will then ride through some of the most bike-friendly streets in the inner west on a meandering route to Sydney Park; nearby we'll stop for a coffee . We'll see some street treatments old and new, and learn about some street battles old and new. The ride aims to -show riders some safe and pleasant ways of getting around the inner west -tell some local stories behind the streetscapes -provide riders with a friendly and welcoming environment. Contact Leader Stuart Veitch on 0400 312 354 for any further information or queries.

Sydney Data Eng meetup with VeloDB

Hey all, please join us for a special meetup with VeloDB this June. Join us for an engaging session filled with exciting discussions and networking opportunities. Don't miss out—RSVP to secure your spot. Please reach out if you'd like to host us! 🎉 🏠 Location: Stone & Chalk @ Tech Central 🍕 Catering: VeloDB 😊 💬 Join our Slack Group here: [Data Engineers Slack Channel](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd09iTwpNulQH0b1BdslM1RzgImOGlX4WgOx6_rzvmVANwGmw/viewform) **Schedule:** \- 5\.30pm: Doors Open \- 6\.00pm: Announcements and Welcome \- 6\.10pm: 1st Talk \- 6\.40pm: 2nd Talk \- 7\.10pm: Networking \- 7\.30pm: Doors Close **Speakers:** 🎤 Mingyu Chen, Apache Doris PMC Chair & VPE@VeloDB **Talk Title**: When Every Second Counts: Real-Time Analytics for AI Systems **Talk Summary**: AI applications are changing what “real-time” means. It is no longer enough to analyze data after the fact. In AI-driven products, decisions often need to happen while events are still unfolding: a user is interacting with an agent, a model is generating output, a workflow is waiting on a tool call, or an operational issue is emerging in production. This talk introduces real-time analytics and explains why it has become more important in the AI era. We will look at common AI-era use cases, including observability, user behavior analysis, operational monitoring, and agent performance tracking. Using Apache Doris as the implementation layer, we will explore how a real-time analytics system can support fast ingestion, low-latency queries, and scalable interactive analysis. I will also share a brief introduction to the Doris open source community and demonstrate a real-time observability use case for AI agents. The goal is to show how teams can turn streaming events into actionable insights quickly enough to improve user experience, reliability, and decision-making. **Speaker Bio**: Mingyu Chen is the Apache Doris PMC Chair and Vice President of Technology at VeloDB. As a seasoned big data developer and one of the founding engineers of the Apache Doris project, Rayner has been a pivotal force in driving the community's growth and technical roadmap. Throughout the project's history, he has spearheaded the technical innovations across every major version and architectural evolution, nurturing Apache Doris into the flourishing analytical database it is today. 🎤 Shilin Wu, Principal Solution Architect@VeloDB **Talk Title**: Realtime AI observability and analytics with Apache Doris - Live Demo **Talk Summary**: AI systems don’t behave like traditional software. When something goes wrong, it’s rarely obvious why. In this live session, we’ll walk through how you can start making AI systems more observable in practice. We’ll explore how to: * Understand what your AI system is actually doing under the hood * Trace how outputs are generated across different steps * Identify where things start to drift or break down * Analyze usage patterns, performance, and cost over time We’ll also show how Apache Doris can be used to store, query, and analyze AI interaction data at scale—so you can move beyond intuition and actually reason about your system. This is a live, evolving demo focused on ideas you can take back and apply immediately. **Speaker Bio**: Shilin is Principal Solution Architect at VeloDB, specializing in the design and optimization of distributed real-time analytical platforms. With an impressive career spanning industry leaders such as Google, Ant Financial, and Confluent, Shilin brings a wealth of expertise in architecting high-performance data systems at scale. He is dedicated to helping organizations successfully transition Apache Doris and VeloDB into production, ensuring their environments are robust, scalable, and highly efficient. If you'd like to **present** at future meetups, please submit your talk [here](https://dataengbytes.com/forms/meetup-talk)! Remember to bring along some great questions! See you all there...

Continuation of Circle Sydney

Segment Four - 7 June : Meadowbank to Obervatory Hill (Barangaroo) Weather looks good. Take the 8.37 ferry from Circular Quay to Meadowbank arriving at 9.30. Alternatively, train from Redfern platform 4 at 7.40 AM. If on the train take the Bay Drive from the station towards the harbour (down hill). Check transport schedules beforehand please. Meet at the Meadowbank Ferry Terminal for a 9.35 start. This segment is 35 kms and relatively hilly. There are lots of toilets, water refill stations and food options up until the Lane Cove cafe at the causeway at the bottom of the hill, then there is nothing on the route until you arrive in Wollstonecraft. There are a couple of steep climbs . One is on Anzac Avenue in West Ryde/Deniston is a 11% climb with a steeper 12% section. The second one is the very long 11% climb out of Lane Cove up Fullers Road. The first safety issue is at the intersection of Station Street and Victoria Road near West Ryde Station. It’s a right turn and a buses only R turn. The Brooke Street Motorway underpass is awkward and slow. My thanks to Fran and Peter for detailing this segment. Watch for updates closer to the departure date.

Secret 2nd "GreenWay" to Brighton-Le-Sands!

On Saturday 6 June we're heading south via a wonderful corridor quietly announced in the shadows of the GreenWay opening! The M6 Active Transport Corridor stretches 4 kilometres from Kyeemagh to Monterey, wide, separated, and genuinely lovely. It's the kind of infrastructure that makes you wonder why we don't build everything like this. We'll also be passing through some of the Inner West's cycling infrastructure along the way: the quick-build route on Meeks Road, the Carrington Road cycleway, and the Botany Bay foreshore path. **We're closing this meetup page soon, to hear about future rides, join our mailing list here:** https://bikemarrickville.short.gy/MailingList Check out the route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/54645516 Be sure to bring a functioning bike and your water. Info on the corridor: https://transportnsw.info/document/8525/M6-PROJECT-CYCLEWAY-MAP.pdf

SydDT #127: The Human Loop – Keeping the Customer at the Core of AI

As AI rapidly accelerates product delivery, it’s easier than ever to ship features that look impressive but fail to solve real customer problems. For SydDT’s 11th birthday celebration, we’re collaborating with our friends from GenAI Lab to bring together a panel of design and product leaders to discuss how to balance the sheer speed of AI with genuine, human-centered design. We’re lucky to have Tarra van Amerongen, Alex Zinoviev, Riley Coleman, and Kristin de la Fuente sharing their observations and insights. They’ll cut through the hype to explore how user research needs to adapt for generative AI models, how to design for trust and transparency, and how the designer’s role is shifting from pixel-pusher to system orchestrator. Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design thinking community. New members are welcome! **SPEAKERS** **[Tarra van Amerongen](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarravanamerongen/)** **VP of Product & Design \| Asia\-Pacific\, Thoughtworks** Tarra is an award-winning user experience and digital transformation leader, guiding creative, technical and business teams towards experiences that change the game. She's worked as a practitioner, lecturer, consultant and leader with in-house teams, consultancies and agencies for the past 15 year after pivoting into design from software development. Tarra is focused on taking a human-first approach to the application of AI, and challenges us to provide an informed view of what should remain human-first, what work means in this new paradigm, and how we stretch our craft as good design matters more than ever. **[Alex Zinoviev](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexzinoviev/)** **Head of Product, Neo Intelligence & Founder, GenAI Lab** Alex Zinoviev has spent 15+ years in product, most recently as Head of Product at Neo, an operations management platform for construction. He founded GenAI Lab, a 1,400-member community of product and design practitioners across Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, because he kept seeing the same gap: teams excited about AI but unsure how to adopt it without losing sight of the humans they're building for. GenAI Lab runs workshops grounded in first-hand experimentation. **[Riley Coleman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/riley-coleman-a185754/) (they/them)** **Founder, AI Flywheel** Riley started their career as service designer creating behaviour change programs for marginalised communities in the not-for-profit sector. Before studying a masters in human-centred multimedia and transitioning to user experience design. Riley has spent the last 12 years working in design leadership roles in Australia, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden. Now, as founder of AI Flywheel, Riley teaches human-centric AI training programs to designers and leaders. Drawing from their extensive experience in behaviour change, human-centred design and technology transformation, they’re building a community of practice around effective Human+AI products, services and operations that people can trust. **[Kristin de la Fuente](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristindelafuente/)** **Design Lead – AI Products, SEEK & GenAI Lab Design Partner, GenAI Lab** At SEEK Kristin is pioneering trust architecture for automation and agentic experiences by recognising that trust failures are often psychological failures, not necessarily technical ones. She's designed practical mechanisms that keep customers centred and in control of agentic workflows. Working with teams to integrate Responsible AI principles and Strategic AI plays, Kristin leverages these frameworks to translate principles into concrete design decisions, ensuring they show up meaningfully in user experience. She moves beyond shipping impressive features to ask harder questions: where should AI actually be used? How do we maintain human agency at scale? Her work makes the invisible visible turning complex AI capability into systems people can understand, trust, and actually control. **EVENT SPONSORS** This event is brought to you by [Thoughtworks](https://www.thoughtworks.com) and [Dynamic4](https://dynamic4.com/). We take photos and record our events for documentation and promo purposes. Just let us know if you prefer not to be featured.

Fields, ferry and food

**Join us on a night ride to Harris Park to share a meal.** This ride is for financial members of Bike Leichhardt Inc. only and their guests. We may be joined by some members of ASHBUG too. ***MUST HAVE GOOD LIGHTS.*** (No lights = no ride) Alternatively catch the train to Harris Park and meet at the restaurant. **FOR RIDERS -** gather on the Queen St. forecourt of CONCORD WEST station (eastern side with the shops) at 4.15 pm for a 4.30 pm start. If its raining, just catch the train to Harris Park to meet at the restaurant. Riders will leave Concord West heading east along 'The Drive' and through the fields of the Dame Edith Walker Estate, south along the Concord Foreshore trail and through a few back streets to the Mortlake vehicle ferry. (The ferry is free. Sunset is about 5pm. Last ferry at 6.15pm). We'll go across the Parramatta river to Putney Point. Up the hill and along a few streets then onto shared paths. past Meadowbank towards Parramatta. We'll take the path next to the light rail through Rose Hill to Asees Indian restaurant on Wigram St Harris Park. Aiming to arrive approx. 5.45 pm, stow our bikes and be seated about 6pm. It's a 20klm riverside meander with the ferry and a few hills at Putney Point. AFTER the meal you can catch the train home from Harris Park OR RIDE BACK. We'll retrace our steps along the north shore of the Parramatta river. You can catch a ferry at any of the wharves along the way. Remaining riders will go to Meadowbank and over the river, pass Rhodes station to finish at Concord West station via Bicentennial park. A 15 klm return journey. You'll need working lights. Bright or reflective clothing. It will be cool, so wear layers and warm gloves. Bring a spare tube, tools and pump to repair a flat tyre. Bring a torch too. FYI we can stow our bikes behind the restaurant. Bring a bike lock. Pay for your own meal and drinks. https://aseesharrispark.com.au/ RSVPs close Monday prior so we can finalise numbers. Please do not come if you are feeling unwell.

Weather pending - Wisemans ferry loop

Human hearted community of practice (COP)

**Event summary:** The monthly human hearted community of practice (COP) is both a support group, and a mutual encouragement group, for people who want to explore living a more human hearted life. The COP is part of Human Hearted Sydney's goal of building community. Please feel free to join us for a session if you're interested. **Who is the COP for ?** The COP is for people who dislike the alienation and emptiness of our modern finance driven society, and are looking for a new form of community - one based on the reality of our human social capacities such as sympathy and friendship, rather than based on returning to religion and other traditional practices. If you would like to be part of building a supportive community for living out socially positive values in today’s world we encourage you to come along and check it out. **Some background: The meaning problem modern society faces -** The development of modern society has seen the destruction of earlier systems of meaning, like religion and tradition. They have not been replaced by a new set of ethics or community, but by market values and hyper individualism. This has created a world of material wealth in which far too many people feel insecure, alone, and unlikely to succeed. We now live in an atomised society in which each person suffers alone and there is no form of community, or meaning other than material wealth, to sustain them. This has led to substantial increases in loneliness and mental health issues like anxiety in modern society. Now there is even a category called ‘[deaths of despair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_of_despair#:~:text=The%20three%20disease%20types%20are,%2C%20West%20Virginia%2C%20and%20Delaware.)’ that refers to people whose reliance on drugs, alcohol etc. to numb their isolation from society leads to their early death. **More background: The solution we will look at -** The obvious solution to the collapse of values in modern society is to build alternative forms of community. Many groups try to achieve this by calling for a return to religious values, or building new religions. As humanists we do not turn to religion but the best of the human potential to provide a foundation for community groups. [Human heartedness](https://web.archive.org/web/20240109160949/https://areomagazine.com/2022/05/05/a-human-hearted-modernity/) is an approach to life which sees humans as inherently social beings. It is backed both by many famous thinkers of the past, and by the findings of recent neuroscience and evolutionary studies which show the path to human happiness and fulfillment is more dependent on building good relationships and positive social connection than on competition and being purely ‘rational’. So one part of the solution to the existential emptiness of modernity is for people to build small communities; groups of like minded people who want to live in a more human hearted way, and support each other to live better in the face of modernity’s onslaught. There are other parts of the solution of course. However in relation to this event our focus is on setting up a COP to support each other to practice living in a more human hearted way, and to provide communal support generally in today’s disenchanted world. **Basic structure of this meeting:** The meeting will be facilitated by a member of the Sydney humanist community and will involve a brief talk explaining human heartedness and the problems of modernity. Then we will proceed to conduct our regular COP meeting. The meeting will finish with a Q/A and discussion period, followed by a lunch and more informal discussion. **Donations:** While this event is free, we would be grateful if you chose to make a [donation](https://www.humanistsaustralia.org/donate) to sustain Humanists Australia which would help it to continue delivering events that serve the community in Sydney. **Please note Date Time and Venue:** In June 2026 the meeting will be held on the second Sunday of the month (June 14th) at 11:00AM. The venue is level one of Darling Square Library. The room we'll be in is called Idea Space 2 **Directions:** The venue is a ten minute walk from both Town Hall and Central station. The Darling Square Library is part of a hive-shaped building called The Exchange. The Idea Spaces are on level one of The Darling Square Library which is accessible via elevators facing towards Darling Square and stairs which are on the other side of the building. Please ask the library staff if you need assistance finding where we are in the library.