Startup and digital folk of the north: The Manchester and Edinburgh Pub Summits are days away

I've got huge respect for the Web Summit team. They've built two of the best-respected tech conference brands around - the eponymous Web Summit (in Dublin and London) and f.ounders, the exclusive, invite-only event for some of technology's biggest names - "The Rolls Royce of tech events," as Zee once put it.Setting out to meet technology communities around Europe, the team is currently on a pub crawl around the continent, meeting people from Spain to Denmark for informal gatherings consisting of a few short talks and a lot of networking.Next week, they hit the north of the UK, with events in Manchester and Edinburgh. As someone who is particularly passionate about the startup scene north of London, this is encouraging to see. If you're going to be in the area, you can find the events here:Monday 2 July 2012: ManchesterTuesday 3 July 2012: EdinburghSkyscanner is co-hosting the Edinburgh one, and Techcelerate the Manchester one. In Manchester, I'll be giving a short talk, as will one of my favourite entrepreneurs based in the city, Colin Tan of Rentlord.They both look set to be great evenings, so if you're going to be in the area, I heartily recommend you sign up for Manchester or Edinburgh now.