Here’s your Campfire for Monday, 26th October.
✨ Shameless self promotion: Aster
In my spare time I design board games. My next one, Aster (an ancient space strategy game) is launching on Kickstarter tomorrow. Check out the campaign and video below (we had a blast making it) and if anyone comes to mind who likes board games or sci-fi, feel free to send it their way.
👉 I’ll be livestreaming the launch and showing a bit about how the game was made. If you fancy that, here’s how to register to get a reminder
📣 Asks, Offers, Updates, & Deadlines
💷 Early-stage business in Scotland? SWEF Start-up Grants of up to £500 are open to sole traders and small companies trading for less than two years. There’s no fixed deadline, and applications are reviewed monthly. Apply here.
🏴 Starting a business in Fife? Fife Council’s Start-Up Grant is open until 14 February 2027 for people starting to trade in Fife. Apply here.
🔋 Working on battery tech? Innovate UK’s Battery Innovation for Dual Use and Defence fund (£2m total) closes on 4 November at 11:00. Find out more here
👭 Interested in connecting with possible co-founders? Fill in your listing on Cofounder Curious today! Connect with others for possible cofounder matching here.
👷Are you hiring? Send us a blurb and we’ll include it in the next newsletter!
✍️ Want to write something for or share something with Campfire? Get in touch!
📅 Events
🎮 27/10-29/10 🗺️ Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow: Games Talks Live Since 2019, Games Talks Live has delivered multiple events across Scotland. The series is engineered around informal, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, pairing short technical and creative talks with structured networking breaks designed to spark collaboration between local developers, visiting publishers, and platform guests. MORE INFO
💜 27/10, 10:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Women in Business: Networking Meet other women running businesses across Edinburgh and the Lothians in a relaxed, supportive setting, with opportunities to share challenges, exchange ideas and explore potential collaborations without formal pitches. MORE INFO
🍕 27/10, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Tech Meetup Edinburgh – October 2026 The monthly meetup for Scotland’s tech community, with community announcements, a tech demo, a keynote and networking. Open to all disciplines. MORE INFO
🎃 27/10, 18:00 🗺️ Dundee: Dundee Data Meetup: Spooky Pub Quiz Edition A Halloween-themed quiz on data, AI and tech hosted by Lesley-Anne Kelly. No data background needed, and solo attendees are placed in teams. MORE INFO
🎮 27/10, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: GameDevEd Social Meetup Meet people working in or interested in game development at this informal Edinburgh gathering. A useful opportunity for game developers, designers and other creative technology professionals to make connections and share ideas. MORE INFO
🌍 27/10, 10:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Greentech Hackathon A one-day CodeBase hackathon, part of the Edinburgh Greentech Growth and Scale Programme, on building solutions to challenges facing Scotland’s natural environment. No tech or startup experience needed. MORE INFO
⛓️ 27/10, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Homebrew Website Club Edinburgh Bring your ideas, questions or latest website projects to an informal meetup for people interested in personal websites, independent publishing and the open web. All levels are welcome, from curious beginners to experienced developers and designers. MORE INFO
🏭 27/10, 08:30 🗺️ Glasgow: PDS Breakfast Seminar 3 – Market Fit and Customer Adoption A Technology Scotland breakfast seminar on finding product–market fit and validating customer needs, with talks from Yvonne Davies of Focused Frog and Danny Kane, co-founder of Filament PD. MORE INFO
👩💻 28/10, 13:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Future Females in Tech: AI, Cyber Security and Digital Careers An Ada Scotland Festival afternoon with a women in tech panel, an AI escape challenge and a cyber escape room, for women and girls exploring digital careers. MORE INFO
🚀 28/10, 09:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: She Scales A networking and co-working day for women founders at the Royal Bank Accelerator on Princes Street. MORE INFO
⚛️ 28/10, 17:00 🗺️ Glasgow: The FRO: New Models for Ambitious Research An evening on Focused Research Organisations, looking at new ways to organise and fund ambitious, engineering-heavy research that doesn’t fit a traditional lab or startup, with a real FRO case study. MORE INFO
🌡️ 28/10, 18:15 🗺️ Edinburgh: How Climate Change Makes Us Feel: A Film and Conversation A screening of The People’s Emergency Briefing followed by small-group conversations about how climate change affects us, hosted by People Peeps Edinburgh with Stuart Moncrieff, ESG Risk Lead at Triodos Bank UK. MORE INFO
🔗 29/10, 17:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Blockchain Scotland Meetup The monthly meetup from Scotland’s blockchain industry association, for developers, startups, students and researchers working in Web3. MORE INFO
👻 29/10, 15:00 🗺️ Glasgow: AI Builders Scotland – Hackoween Jam A Halloween AI jam at Factory73 where teams get a theme and three hours to build something. No judges, and free AI tokens are provided. MORE INFO
🧠 29/10, 17:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Neurotech Night A neurotech-themed edition of the weekly Thursday Gathering, powered by ARIA, connecting founders, investors, students and researchers from Edinburgh’s innovation community. MORE INFO
⚖️ 01/11, 13:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Who’s Responsible When AI Goes Wrong? A PauseAI Scotland panel with politicians and technical and policy experts on AI accountability in Scotland, followed by audience Q&A. MORE INFO
🚀 02/11, 18:30 🗺️ Glasgow: RookieOven Monthly Meetup Glasgow’s long-running monthly meetup for tech startup founders and the wider startup community. MORE INFO
🎯 03/11, 09:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Decode Your Customers: Understand, Connect, Convert A Barclays Eagle Labs morning session for startup founders on understanding who they’re building for, so their sales and marketing reach the right people. MORE INFO
☕ 03/11, 09:00 🗺️ Inverness: Unfiltered Inverness An informal morning meetup for founders and the local tech community, run by CodeBase and Techscaler. MORE INFO
🏴 03/11, 09:30 🗺️ Dundee: Tayside TechFest 2026 A day of talks, workshops and showcases at Abertay cyberQuarter for startups, scale-ups and tech leaders across Dundee, Angus and Perth & Kinross. MORE INFO
☕ 04/11, 08:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Unfiltered Edinburgh An informal morning meetup for founders and the local tech community, run by CodeBase and Techscaler. MORE INFO
☕ 04/11, 08:30 🗺️ Aberdeen: Unfiltered Aberdeen An informal morning meetup for founders and the local tech community, run by CodeBase and Techscaler. MORE INFO
🗽 05/11, 17:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Where Hope Meets Reality: Turning Big Dreams into Real Impact A Venture Café Thursday Gathering with a founder burnout workshop from Cat Burton and a panel of Scottish founders on expanding into New York. MORE INFO
☕ 05/11, 09:00 🗺️ Glasgow: Unfiltered Glasgow An informal morning meetup for founders and the local tech community, run by CodeBase and Techscaler. MORE INFO
🎙️ 06/11, 10:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: How to Reach an Audience: Edinburgh Spokesperson and Media Training A one-day course with journalist and media trainer Julia Rampen for founders, campaigners and spokespeople, covering press releases, pitching, interviews and using social media with just a smartphone. MORE INFO
🤝 06/11, 09:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders Hub Edinburgh – by Bayes and ScotlandIS A co-working morning at the Bayes Centre for founders building scalable tech businesses, from early stage to scaling up. MORE INFO
🐧 07/11, 11:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Linux Users’ Group Edinburgh Meetup A meetup for Linux users of all levels, from sysadmins to beginners, covering shell scripting, self-hosting, troubleshooting and switching from Windows or macOS. MORE INFO
💡 09/11, 18:30 🗺️ Inverness: TechMeetup Inverness November 2026 The monthly meetup for the Highlands tech community, with a featured talk and networking. MORE INFO
☕ 12/11, 10:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Founders Coffee Club A founders-only networking morning with no pitches or speeches, followed by a day of co-working. MORE INFO
📈 12/11, 14:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Talent2Scale An Invest2Scale masterclass for founders and leaders moving from startup to scaleup, run with Eden Scott and Cosh and Co, on the leadership, culture and team structures needed to support growth. MORE INFO
❄️ 12/11, 17:30 🗺️ Edinburgh: ESEN Winter Networking 2026 The Edinburgh Social Enterprise Network’s annual networking evening, bringing together social entrepreneurs, anchor institutions and private businesses, with speakers. MORE INFO
🏗️ 13/11, 10:00 🗺️ Dundee: Founders Hub Dundee – Digital Fortnight A co-working morning at Abertay cyberQuarter for founders building scalable tech businesses, from early stage to scaling up, run by ScotlandIS. MORE INFO
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That’s all for this week - have a great one!
Team 🔥 Campfire