Santa Cruz Works New Tech: July 2026

Our last New Tech before summer break — back at River Row with a new fast-paced format!

You spoke, we listened: lower admission price ✓ more networking time ✓ and a return to the indoor/outdoor River Row venue on the San Lorenzo River ✓

New this month: presenters are split across 3 sections, and the audience rotates every 15 minutes — so you'll catch every company up close.

Schedule

• 6:00 – Food, drinks & networking
• 6:30 – Welcome & announcements
• 6:45 – Round 1: 2 companies per section
• 7:00 – Round 2: rotate to a new section
• 7:15 – Round 3: rotate again
• 7:30 – more food, networking, and tours of the River Row apartments & Sky Deck
• 8:00 – Summer break begins!

Presenting Companies

• Jonathan Lo / Keeping People Interested — The bestselling author shares why empathy is the only KPI that matters, and how to build attention that turns customers into advocates.
• Logan Mermin / Western Flyer — Steinbeck and Ricketts' legendary vessel sails again as a floating classroom for ocean science.
• Niek Hasselaar / Microsoft — Honest lessons on what actually drives AI adoption inside a large organization.
• Pianpian Xu Guthrie / Amotions AI — A real-time AI coach that joins live sales calls, reads emotions, and whispers in-the-moment suggestions.
• Paul Regen / Amazing AI Engineering / Lucid: A solo Santa Cruz engineer is building Lucid, an "organizational intelligence operating system" that scans a whole company like an MRI.
• Rachit Verma / SmartBrowse — Born at CruzHacks: an AI shopping agent that does the tab-hoarding, price-checking grind for you.

AND MORE AWESOMENESS! Check out the link below to find out more (trust us, you won't want to miss them!)

Food and beverage included with admission. FREE parking in the underground garage (enter at 444 Front Street).

EVENT ENTRANCE

Thank you to our partners!