The team spent a week in Atlanta for RenderATL and Atlanta Tech Week, and it was one for the books.
Between the ATW kick-off and lightning talks at Render, we tried something a little different, and got to spend a jam-packed few days with the community who showed up ready to build. While some attendees already knew Netlify, many more were introduced to our agentic features for the first time. The beauty of creating hands-on experiences like this is the special chance it gives the team to meet you where you are and learn together.
The energy was there from the moment Atlanta Tech Week kicked off: authentic connection, live builds, and everyday workflows for folks to take home.
Why we skipped the booth
Many of you have projects and web apps on Netlify today, and yet many of you aren’t familiar with how much you can build with Netlify’s agentic features. To show you how you can use Agent Runners to build a portfolio from scratch or edit your existing project, or how to implement an AI chat bot with AI gateway, we knew we had to bring Netlify to you in a new way. So we opted out of a traditional booth, and focused on bringing Netlify into your hands, guiding you through workflows to take home with you. RenderATL felt like a great opportunity to host an immersive experience for Atlanta’s growing tech scene, and give RenderATL attendees a home to learn and build all event long. Atlanta did not disappoint and the community really showed up for us.
In case you missed it
Atlanta Tech Week kick-off
RenderATL was from August 12th-13th 2026, and Netlify kicked Atlanta Tech Week off with a special Atlanta-trivia based workshop. Focused on building trivia apps and more with Netlify, this workshop was hosted by our own Head of Community, Karthik Puvvada (KP for short). It was a super interactive experience that set the tone for the rest of the week.
Pre-programming: The Commits Awards show and more
After this kickoff workshop, Monday and Tuesday were filled with pre-programming for folks in from out of town for ATW and RenderATL, including:
The team was able to spend time with builders and even to receive awards at these key events. Jack Herrington accepted an award on behalf of TanStack, and the project I (Tania Chakraborty) previously worked on, goose, received an award accepted by Angie Jones during The Commits Awards show. The vibes were strong, and builder-focused before RenderATL could get started.
RenderATL Build with Netlify station
You all showed up ready for hands-on building at Render.
Builder stations on the expo floor are still a new concept, and the RenderATL team gave us the room to try hosting one instead of a traditional booth. We actually nearly had to cancel the final build-off because we weren’t sure of turnout, but ran it anyway and you all showed up with tremendous support.
What the community had to say
Every workshop had a full house, but that wasn’t the highlight for us. Most of you showed up with a project or idea ready to go, that you wanted to build on Netlify. The team had the opportunity to host 7 lightning talks, share 2 talks on the main stage, and gave away 3,000 credits to help you get started building throughout RenderATL. Here are some top highlights of what you had to say, live from the show floor:
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Petros Hong, Developer Community at Apify, found us as we were getting set up for Render, and shared how he uses Netlify to help 1,500+ users find jobs from across the web.
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Dave from Microsoft has been working to help local industry leaders, restaurants, and bars, connect to their data, and shared how he used Netlify help to make his app work and go live quickly.
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Nura Williams, a children’s book author, shared how she uses Netlify to create websites to help market her company and published books.
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Bobby Dorlus, technologist and speaker, joined us after Anil’s Netlify Database workshop to share how he experiences Netlify take care of critical infrastructure that empowers the next generation of creators.
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Naima Bogran, part of Resilient Coders’ Changemakers program, shared how her first experience at RenderATL went and what she learned from the AMA with our CEO, Mathias Biilmann.
Moments we loved
The community took the time to ask thoughtful questions and share valuable feedback, both during and in between each of our lightning talks and sessions. Here are some of the team’s favorite moments:
- Answering questions and helping the community build projects from ideas to live on Netlify, in person.
- Everyone in and outside of the conference walking up to us to share their experiences and Netlify projects with us.
- Unlocking the special “aha!” moment across our hands-on sessions, whether it was for folks using Netlify today, or for those who are just getting started.
- All of the incredible attendees and speakers from the local and global the tech scenes stopping by to show their love for the team, and for Netlify.
And so much more. If you’re wondering when the next Build with Netlify activation is…we can’t share those details just yet. But we do have events coming up that we can share.
Coming up next
You can come see Netlify’s CEO: Mathias Biilmann, speak on the mainstage at WeAreDevelopers conference, stateside:
- WeAreDevelopers World Congress: North America
- September 23-25th
- San Jose, CA
We’ll also be announcing the next in-person Netlify event soon, and you can join the Netlify Discord to be the first to know or subscribe to the official community events calendar.
Special thanks
As the team looks forward to the next opportunity to build with you in person, thank you to everyone who came and supported the team with incredible questions, projects, and stories to share. And a huge thank you to everyone on the team that helped make this activation at RenderATL 2026 a reality: our Mathias Biilmann, Jack Herrington, Karthik Puvvada, Tania Chakraborty, Anil Bridgpal, and Nahrin Jalal.
To keep a direct line with the Netlify team (including our CEO!) and get help as you build, join us on Discord.
