Thessaloniki Java Meetup

31/05/2026

Workshop == Murphy's Law in action 🍀

On Thursday in our SKG Java Meetup we had live-coding session, bulding an AI assistant from scratch with Spring AI!
We tried to go from a simple chat endpoint all the way to tool calling and an MCP server that Claude Code could use directly!

Murphy's Law made its appearance of course 😅 so we had unexpected issues during live-coding, but that's a developer's life, isn't it?

We had a laugh with our "sarcastic QA engineer" AI persona, that replied to us "What's more pointless than a meeting of minds that can't even meet a deadline?" which is true, but...

Full step-by-step guide is live - reproduce everything even if you couldn't attend:
👉 https://lefterisxris.github.io/spring-ai-meetup-demo/
💻 Source code: https://github.com/LefterisXris/spring-ai-meetup-demo

Thanks to everyone who attended, Ok!Thess for hosting, and Chubb for sponsoring the pizzas 🍕!

See you at the next one! ☕
Explore · Learn · Engage · Socialize - SKG Java Community
👉 https://www.meetup.com/thessaloniki-not-only-java/

25/05/2026

Java Engineer? 👉 You don't want to miss this one.

💡 Did you know? Your Spring Boot app can be an AI agent with just a few annotations!
At our upcoming SKG Java Meetup we'll code together AI-powered Java applications, live on stage!

Don't expect a typical presentation with slides.. This is a fully live-coded session, progressively building an AI-powered Assistant using Spring AI, from a simple chat endpoint to a full agent that calls your business logic, remembers conversations, and exposes itself as an MCP Server.

📅 Thu, 28/05/2026 | 19:00 - 21:00
📍 OKThess | Thessaloniki (Greece)
🍕 Pizzas and Snacks, kindly sponsored by Chubb! 🙏
🎁 JetBrains license giveaway

24/05/2026

Java turned 31 and still refuses to be "legacy" (since May 23, 1995) 🎉

Records, virtual threads, pattern matching, modern Spring, cloud-native apps, and now AI-powered development with the Java ecosystem evolving around it! 🚀

Not bad for a 31-year-old language. ☕

01/05/2026

Another fun Thursday of SKG Java Meetup!
Thanks to everyone who joined us! It's always great to see the community coming together 🙌

🎤 When Kostas presents, you always know it's gonna be fun!
Thanks for sharing your great journey of building Taat Kosta!

I think involving your kids and your wife in it really makes the difference and makes it worth even more! Kudos for that.
I think it's fair to say it's a "family business", right? 😊

Feel free to check out Taat at Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3220160/taat/

🎁 Congrats to the lucky winners of:
1) 3 Taat licenses
2) JetBrains license
3) JPrime tickets

The presentation slides and the code from the demo have been published on our GitHub repository: https://github.com/skg-java-community/meetups so feel free to take a look.

Get involved
🎤 Submit a talk or suggest a topic: https://forms.gle/9Hq5bJnYZuHsBBn16
💡 Vote for topics in the backlog: https://trello.com/b/9uQt5Tex/topics-voting
💻️ Github Repo: https://github.com/skg-java-community/meetups
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 page: https://www.facebook.com/ThessalonikiJavaMeetup
💖 Sponsorship & Donations: https://opencollective.com/skgjug/contribute/meetup-event-sponsor-94613

Our next meetup will be "Spring AI & LangChain4j" at 28th of May so save the date and until then... keep learning! 🚀

14/04/2026

Everyone has started a side project..
But how many finish them?
This one made it to Steam! 🎮

Join our next SKG Java Meetup to hear the real story behind Taat, a PC Game that started as an idea and is now published on Steam by Kostas Georgiadis!

📅 Thu, 23/04/2026 | 19:00 - 21:00
📍 OKThess | Thessaloniki (Greece)

🍕 Pizzas and Snacks
🎟️ Free Steam licenses giveaway
🎁 JetBrains license giveaway

21/03/2026

🚀 Our latest SKG Java Meetup was a success!

A big thank you to everyone who joined us.. It's always great to see the community coming together 🙌

🎤 We explored Spring Modulith through a talk & live demo by George Charitakis, thank you George for the insights!

🤝 We connected, exchanged ideas, and caught up with friends and colleagues

🎁 Congrats to the lucky winners of:
1) Devoxx ticket
2) JetBrains license
3) Domain-Driven Design book

🍕 And of course, we enjoyed delicious pizzas kindly sponsored by PRODYNA! Thank you for supporting our community!

We are already looking forward to the next one.. Until then... keep learning! 🚀

17/03/2026

🚀 SKG Java Meetup | March 2026

Is the Monolith really dead, or just misunderstood?

At our next SKG Java Meetup, we’ll explore how Spring Modulith helps bring order, structure, and elegance back to monolithic architectures.

🎤 George Charitakis (Software & Cloud Architect @ PRODYNA) will show how to build modular and maintainable applications without the operational complexity of microservices.

📅 Thu, 19/03/2026 | 19:00 - 21:00
📍 OKThess, Δήμος Θεσσαλονίκης

🍕 Pizzas and Snacks, kindly sponsored by PRODYNA 🙏
🎁 JetBrains license giveaway
🎟️ Tickets for Devoxx Athens 2026

Great developers never stop learning...
See you there!

19/02/2026

Our next meetup is a BIG one! We are joining forces with 6 more SKG tech communities for an interesting round-table debate about.... AI (what else? 😅)

- Will AI take our jobs?
- Are juniors in danger? What about seniors?
- Are we becoming 10x... or irrelevant? 🤖

Honestly? Nobody knows.
But we’re living through insane technological acceleration and we are right in the middle of it!

After the debate? Networking, pizza & beer 🍕🍺
Plus 🎉 5 Devoxx Greece tickets for lucky winners!

📅 Tuesday, 24th of Feb 2026 at 18:30
📍 OKThess Δήμος Θεσσαλονίκης
👉 RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/thessaloniki-not-only-java/events/313099364 or in the LinkedIn event: https://www.linkedin.com/events/willaitakeourjobs-themeetupofme7424121781709463552/

SKG Meetups Communities that participate:
- Software Testing & QA Meetup
- Java Meetup
- .NET Meetup
- GDG Cloud Meetup
- PyThess Meetup
- SKG Javascript Meetup
- Shift Happens Community

We’re inviting you to our next meetup, and this one is designed to spark real debate: 🔥 “Will AI Take Our Jobs?” We’re teaming up with multiple software-focused tech comm

25/01/2026

Our January meetup on GitOps & ArgoCD was a success! Great discussions, lots of questions, and hands-on insights! 🙌

A big thank you to Patroklos Papapetrou for the talk and for sharing your experience, and to Chubb for sponsoring the pizzas 🍕!

We also had our Vasilopita cut, and the lucky winners (including the giveaways) have already received their gifts!

Cheers to the next one! 🚀