I thought I would jot down some of the networking mixers that I know about in the greater Portland area. I like to stick to downtown Portland or Vancouver for meetups; anywhere else is just inconvenient with weekday traffic. Hackathons are not on this post.
If you were looking for a more robust event listing site than [Calagator.org] (http://calagator.org) for tech meetups, there really isn't one. [Eventbrite] (http://www.eventbrite.com) and [Meetup.com] (http://www.meeetup.com.) are how I found out about most of these.
General Networking for all flavors of tech backgrounds and in no particular order:
Science on Tap
Date: Jan 5, 2016
Time: 7pm-9pm
Location: Clinton Street Theater
Topic: What Animals Tell Us About Social Drinking
Info: meets once per month, http://www.meetup.com/ScienceOnTapORWA/events/226557419/
Event location alternates between Vancouver's Kiggins Theater and Portland's Clinton Street Theater
Costs: $8 (if booked online), $10 at the door
Vantechy
Date: Jan 5
Time: 5pm
Location: Old Ivy Taproom (108 W Evergreen Blvd, Vancouver, WA)
Theme: tech topics, occassional speakers, startup demos, general networking
Info: meets every two weeks, http://www.meetup.com/VanTechy/
PDX Big Data Discussion Group
Date: Jan 6, 2016
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm
Location: Little Bird Technologies (506 SW 6th, Suite 200, Portland)
Topic: This month's paper is [Earlybird: Real-Time Search at Twitter] (http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~jimmylin/publications/Busch_etal_ICDE2012.pdf) by Busch et al. The goal is just to have something to start conversations.
Info: https://twitter.com/pdxbigdata
Networking Night at Airbnb
Date: Jan 14
Time: 6pm
Location: Airbnb's office at 2nd and Couch
Info: http://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-Portland/events/227343182/
Host Org: Women Who Code https://www.womenwhocode.com/portland
NewTech PDX (formerly Portland Tech Meetup)
Date: Jan 18
Time: 6pm
Location: MercyCorps Northwest (45 SW Ankeny St, Portland, OR)
Info: Meets every 3rd Monday of the month. Features 5 startup demos. http://www.meetup.com/NewTechPDX/
Cost: $10 online or $20 at the door
PDX Women in Tech (PDXWIT) Happy Hour Networking Event
Date: Jan 26
Time: 4:30pm
Location: WeWork (220 Northwest 8th Avenue, Portland, OR)
Info: http://www.pdxwit.org/
eBay Tech Tuesday
Date: Jan 27
Time: 6pm-8pm
Location: eBay Community Lounge (1400 SW 5th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Portland)
Topic: The Evolution of Culture in Portland Tech
Info: meets once a month, http://www.meetup.com/eBay-Tech-Tuesdays/events/219520529/