Belfast Tech Week 2026

Featured events

The highlights of the week, hand-picked by the Belfast Tech Week team. Save the ones you want and build your own agenda.

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Monday 21

2 events

12pmLunch

Ctrl+Alt+Career: Pathways into Tech ( FREE Boojum Lunch 🌯)

Curious about a career in tech? Let's talk about it. There’s no single route into a technology career. Some people study Computer Science. Others discover tech through a placement, a side project, a graduate programme or a completely different degree altogether. Ctrl+Alt+Career: Pathways into Tech is an informal event designed for university students who want to explore what a career in technology could look like and hear directly from the people who have made that journey themselves. Join Allstate at QUB Future Lab to hear authentic stories from early-career professionals and technologists, ask the questions you're really curious about, and gain a better understanding of the opportunities available in one of Northern Ireland's largest technology employers.

Botanic & Queensby Allstate

6pmMeetup

Data & AI Meetup

We’re excited to bring our Data & AI Meetup to Belfast Tech Week 2026! Join us for an evening bringing together engineers and technology professionals to explore Data, AI and modern software development, with a focus on practical insights and real-world experiences. We’re delighted to welcome: Ronan Bradley - Ocula Technologies Damian O’Hare - Global Payments Inc. Antone Bagnall & Jack Elliott - Beam Benefits Across the evening, our speakers will share their experiences of building and scaling data and AI solutions in the real world, exploring topics including: Putting AI into production Building resilient systems How AI is reshaping software development Bringing conversation analytics into the data modelling layer The challenges and opportunities of working with AI and data at scale Expect concise presentations, practical insights, real-world experiences, live demos and plenty of audience discussion. And, of course, there’ll be pizza, drinks and networking to round off the evening. Whether you work in Data, AI, software engineering or you're simply interested in where the industry is heading, this is a great opportunity to hear directly from engineers working hands-on with these technologies.

City Centreby MCS Group

Tuesday 22

2 events

8amSports Activity

Move Club Social

Join us for the Move Club Social, part of Belfast Tech Week 2026. Start the day with a morning walk through Belfast, followed by breakfast and networking at The Ewart, giving members of the tech community a chance to connect outside the usual office setting.

City Centreby MCS Group

6.30pmAwards

Cranmore's Great Big Tech Quiz of the Year for Action for Children, powered by Software NI

The Big Tech Quiz of the Year, powered by Cranmore Nominate your team for the Big Tech Quiz of the Year in aid of Action for Children. The event on 22 September will see Northern Ireland’s tech community from across the private, public, education and third sectors raising money for a vital charity while battling it out for the title of NI’s best tech brains. The event is powered by NI software specialists Cranmore, in partnership with Software NI and Early Tech Talent, with support from sponsors MCS Group. Hosted by Q Radio’s Noel Bradley, the quiz takes place from 7.30pm (doors 6.30pm) with a range of cracking prizes to be won. All proceeds go to Action for Children, which does incredible work supporting families throughout Northern Ireland. Organisations are asked to book no more than three teams at the event, with suggested team sizes of between four and seven strong. The quiz will have a tech flavour, but the non-technical will have plenty of opportunity to contribute to their team’s tally. Sign up your team now here at the registration link.

City Centreby Cranmore Consulting

Wednesday 23

3 events

8amInvite Only

Women in Tech Roundtable

An invite only gathering of female leaders from across the NI Tech Community

City Centreby MCS Group

8.15amConference

AICon

The conversation around AI has changed. Across industries, the question is no longer whether AI works, but what it takes to make it work at scale, in production, and with accountability. At the centre of that shift is a new generation of agentic AI systems: agents that do not just assist but act, making decisions, orchestrating workflows, and reshaping how organisations operate. AICon Belfast 2026 is built around this moment. We bring together the leaders, practitioners, and pioneers who are navigating the move from experimentation to execution, and those who are already looking beyond it to what comes next. The programme is grounded in real outcomes, honest reflection, and the ambition to show our audience not just what is working today, but what is arriving tomorrow. Two tracks run through the day. One is anchored in the evidence of AI delivering value in the real world. The other reaches toward the frontiers of what AI is becoming. Together, they make AICon Belfast the place where proven results meet bold thinking.

City Centreby Kainos

6pmMeetup

BelfAWSt Unconference

We’re back! Join us after a spring/summer hiatus for AWS, food, fun, and community. It’s been a while, so we’re kicking off with an unconference-style event - we want to hear from you! What kinds of topics should we dive into? Who should we bring in for guest speakers? What kinds of services, tooling, or technology would you like information sessions or hands on workshops? Do YOU have something exciting you want to share? We welcome everyone with an interest in AWS, and no idea is too big or too small. Pizza, beer, and soft drinks (and maybe some fun swag!) will be provided. 🍕 Special thanks to Kainos for hosting and sponsoring this event.

Botanic & Queensby Belfast AWS User Group

Thursday 24

2 events

12.30pmDebate

The Big Debate | Is AI Killing Creativity or Unleashing It?

What happens when anyone can create anything and machines can do it faster? AI can write the copy, compose the music, design the campaign, generate the image and make the film. The barriers to creativity are disappearing but are we entering a new golden age of human imagination, or simply drowning in an endless sea of AI slop? If anyone with an idea and a prompt can suddenly become a designer, filmmaker, musician or writer, what does it mean to actually be creative? And if you can't tell whether something was made by a human or a machine, does it even matter? Join us at Belfast Tech Week as two teams go head-to-head over the future of creativity, the value of craft and whether AI is democratising human expression or slowly destroying the very thing that makes it valuable. This isn’t a panel. It’s a showdown. Three rounds. Two sides. No sitting on the fence. Expect strong opinions, uncomfortable questions and plenty of disagreement as we ask: Is AI killing human creativity or are we on the verge of the biggest creative explosion in history? You’ll get the final say, with the audience voting before and after the debate to see which side can actually change the room. Schedule 12.30pm | Arrival and lunch 1.15pm | The Big Debate begins 2.00pm | Audience verdict & finish

City Centreby Belfast Tech Week

7pmAwards

NI Tech Awards

Celebrate Northern Ireland's Tech Revolution An electrifying night where innovation meets celebration. Join us as we honour the pioneers, visionaries, and community drivers shaping NI's digital future. Forget stiff shirts and bland speeches. The NI Tech Awards is a high-energy party designed to connect and celebrate. We're transforming our Belfast City Centre venue into the ultimate tech party for one night only. Expect a high-energy atmosphere, vibrant networking, and a fast moving awards ceremony that keeps the energy soaring. It's an exclusive gathering for the innovators, the game-changers, and the community champions – the people truly pushing boundaries in NI tech.

City Centreby Belfast Tech Week

Friday 25

1 event

5pmHappy Hour

Belfast Tech Week Wrap-Up

After a full week of talks, workshops and meetups, come and close out Belfast Tech Week with us. The Wrap-Up is an informal social to mark the end of the week, catch up with the people you met along the way, and have the conversations there wasn't time for between sessions. Expect a relaxed couple of hours, a few drinks, and good company from right across the Belfast tech community. No agenda, no slides, no pitches. Just the community in one room before everyone heads into the weekend.

Cathedral Quarterby TechTides