Colombia's Free Robot Software Meetup Comes to Cartagena This November

On November 7, 2026, the city of Cartagena in Colombia will host a full-day gathering for people who build and study robots. The event is a "ROS Meetup" — ROS stands for Robot Operating System, which is not a robot itself but a free, shared software toolkit that helps robots move, see, and make decisions. Think of it as Android for robots: a common language that lets different machines and parts work together without every team starting from scratch.

The meetup runs from 8:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon at the Napoleón de la Rosa Echávez Auditorium, inside Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar. It is organized by several IEEE robotics chapters — RAS Colombia, RAS Colcaribe, RAS Javeriana — along with UTBot, a university robotics group. Organizers describe it as a space to connect, learn, and strengthen the open-source robotics community across Colombia and Latin America.

So what actually happens there? Students, researchers, developers, and working professionals share projects, swap lessons learned, and demonstrate what they have built. If you are curious about robotics but have never written a line of code, these events are still useful: you can see working robots, ask basic questions, and find out which local universities and companies are hiring or training people. Organizers have opened registration for both attendees and speakers through a LinkTree link tied to IEEE RAS Colombia's social media.

There is one honest catch: this is a community meetup, not a major product launch, so there are no big announcements or shiny new gadgets guaranteed. Information is also spread across a forum thread and social media rather than a single polished website, and the event is conducted primarily in Spanish. If you are nearby and curious about how robots actually get built, it is a low-cost, low-pressure way to look inside that world.