On November 18, the Illinois Prairie PostgreSQL User Group will host its final meetup of the year featuring Jay Miller, Staff Developer Advocate at Aiven and founder of Black Python Devs. Jay will discuss why many application developers hesitate to work with databases and how embracing PostgreSQL can improve AI-driven features, reliability, and developer confidence. Drawing from his work building a vibe-coded application, he will share practical insights to help “application-first” developers feel empowered not intimidated by the database layer. This session is an excellent opportunity for developers of all backgrounds to learn how PostgreSQL can enhance modern software development.…

Prairie Postgres, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the PostgreSQL community across the Midwest, is proud to celebrate its first anniversary on October 15th! Over the past year, Prairie Postgres has brought together developers, database administrators, researchers, and organizations that rely on PostgreSQL — through meetups, educational events, and open collaboration. Our mission is to foster innovation, knowledge sharing, and community growth within the Postgres ecosystem. As we look ahead to another exciting year — including the upcoming PG DATA 2026 Conference in Chicago — we invite companies and Postgres-driven organizations to support our mission. Your donations and sponsorships directly…

Our next Prairie Postgres meetup will take place on October 15 at the DRW Training Center in Chicago. We are excited to welcome Henrietta “Hettie” Dombrovskaya, Database Architect at DRW, researcher, and co-author of PostgreSQL Query Optimization (Apress, 2024). Hettie will deliver “Long Queries and the Art of Full Scan”, a talk that explores why some analytical queries inevitably take time, why neglecting report performance is a dangerous practice, and how to build reports the right way before they turn into performance bottlenecks. This session is also a test run of her upcoming presentation at PG Conf EU in Riga…