# Kyoto Tech Meetup: January 2026 wrap-up

[Canonical article](https://www.ashryan.io/writing/kyoto-tech-meetup-january-2026-wrap-up/)

Published: 2026-02-03

Updates from our morning coffee and hack day events last month. Also, this month's schedule.

![](https://www.ashryan.io/images/responsive/162c8221cad8384b66eb-640.webp)

January was a busy month for the [Kyoto Tech Meetup](https://kyoto-tech.github.io/?ref=ashryan.io). Across the month, we held:

- 1 Community Hack Day
- 4 Morning Tech & Coffees

This was the first month that we started alternating weekly morning coffees between Thursday and Saturday. It seems to be working so we’ll stick with that for February as well.

## January’s Community Hack Day

We put more of an emphasis on community projects for this Hack Day. [On the website repo](https://github.com/kyoto-tech/kyoto-tech.github.io?ref=ashryan.io), we got 5 PRs in, including:

- Updated favicon
- Google Tag Manager
- Google Maps
- Google Forms (for contact)

I don’t think we planned for this to be a Google-themed day, but we somehow landed on it.

We also got new ideas for the site and some documented suggestions on how to improve for our target audience. There’s a new effort for building a Discord bot for the meetup as well.

Our next Community Hack Day is scheduled for Sat, Feb 28: [join us](https://www.meetup.com/kyoto-tech-meetup/events/313033596/?ref=ashryan.io)!

## Topics from the morning coffees

I’m not sure why, but writing link posts weekly has been a challenge for me, so I’m giving you all the links I caught from our coffee sessions this month in one go.

### AI / ML / Emerging Tech

- **actu-al.co** [https://actu-al.co/](https://actu-al.co/?ref=ashryan.io)
- **Moltbot** [https://www.moltbot.dev/](https://www.moltbot.dev/?ref=ashryan.io)
- **Prometheus MCP server** [https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus?ref=ashryan.io)
- **AI Engineer (YouTube)** [https://www.youtube.com/@aiDotEngineer](https://www.youtube.com/@aiDotEngineer?ref=ashryan.io)
- **Article: “US vs China: How to Win the Wrong Way”** [https://platforms.substack.com/p/us-vs-china-how-to-win-the-wrong](https://platforms.substack.com/p/us-vs-china-how-to-win-the-wrong?ref=ashryan.io)
- **Article: “The Japanese AI Boom Needs A Little More Ambition”** [https://asianometry.passport.online/member/episode/the-japanese-ai-boom-needs-a-little-more-ambition](https://asianometry.passport.online/member/episode/the-japanese-ai-boom-needs-a-little-more-ambition?ref=ashryan.io) - **Companion video** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z\_ZXSUxQF-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ZXSUxQF-Y\&ref=ashryan.io)

### Web / App Development

- **Astro** [https://astro.build/](https://astro.build/?ref=ashryan.io) - **Cloudflare** [https://www.cloudflare.com/](https://www.cloudflare.com/?ref=ashryan.io) - **Astro purchased by Cloudflare** [https://www.cloudflare.com/press/press-releases/2026/cloudflare-acquires-astro-to-accelerate-the-future-of-high-performance-web-development/](https://www.cloudflare.com/press/press-releases/2026/cloudflare-acquires-astro-to-accelerate-the-future-of-high-performance-web-development/?ref=ashryan.io)
- Auth stuff - **Clerk** [https://clerk.com/](https://clerk.com/?ref=ashryan.io) - **Authlete** [https://www.authlete.com/](https://www.authlete.com/?ref=ashryan.io)
- **IndieWeb** [https://indieweb.org/](https://indieweb.org/?ref=ashryan.io)

### Ideas and mental models

- **Mastermind groups** [https://circle.so/blog/mastermind-groups](https://circle.so/blog/mastermind-groups?ref=ashryan.io)
- **Luck surface area** [https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck](https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck?ref=ashryan.io)

### Media Picks

- **\_Kyoto, In Sound\_podcast and tours** [https://www.kyotoinsound.com/](https://www.kyotoinsound.com/?ref=ashryan.io)
- Ephemeral social apps - **Minutiae** [https://minutiae-app.org/](https://minutiae-app.org/?ref=ashryan.io) - **BeReal** [https://bereal.com/](https://bereal.com/?ref=ashryan.io)

## What’s on in February

At this point in time, we have 4 meetups scheduled for this month:

- [Morning Tech & Coffee on Thursday, February 5, 2026](https://www.meetup.com/kyoto-tech-meetup/events/313166166/?ref=ashryan.io)
- [Morning Tech & Coffee on Saturday, February 14, 2026](https://www.meetup.com/kyoto-tech-meetup/events/313066440/?ref=ashryan.io)
- [Morning Tech & Coffee on Thursday, February 19, 2026](https://www.meetup.com/kyoto-tech-meetup/events/313166183/?ref=ashryan.io)
- [Community Hack Day, February 28, 2026](https://www.meetup.com/kyoto-tech-meetup/events/313033596/?ref=ashryan.io) (venue partner [FabCafe Kyoto](https://fabcafe.com/jp/kyoto/?ref=ashryan.io))

Hope to see you at one!