DRON8 Summit 2026
DRON8 Summit 2026 | Texas Secretary of State, SARONIC Technologies, SWARMER, Mach Industries & Defense-Tech Leaders
Join Texas Secretary of State Robert S. Howden; Alex Fink, President and CEO US of SWARMER; Glenn Meyer, Supply Chain Strategy Director at Saronic Technologies, and the Consuls General of Finland and Sweden for DRON8 Summit 2026. A full day of conversations on drones, robotics, AI and the future of security.
Hear from leaders at Mach Industries, CesiumAstro, Beyond Identity, Q-Branch, the National Security Innovation Council and UT Austin, alongside defense-tech investors from Oxcart Ventures and The Veteran Fund. Explore how autonomous technologies move from research and demonstrations into real-world deployment through keynotes, panels, live demonstrations, real deployments, real decisions, real deals.
Meet your next business partner, investor or employer, your next big opportunity could start with one conversation.
Agenda
8:30 AM | Doors Open
8:30 AM | Breakfast & Matchmaking room open for VIP
9:15 AM | Morning Power Session: Texas & Autonomy
Joseph Kopser (MC) invites us to Kyiv Aviation Institute, through live tele most, moderated by Dr. Mosser, UT Austin.
9:45 AM | INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT: Glenn Meyer, Director of Supply Chain Strategy at Saronic Technologies will introduce autonomy from different angle.
10:30 AM | TED-style talk by Ty Audronis, Founder of the Tempest DRONEWORX will be followed by Terry Zrubek, Senior representative of the Texas Governor's Office, who will officially recognize FIRST STEM Robotics and BEST Robotics high school students, the next generation of Texas innovators, engineers, and technology leaders.
11:20 AM | PANEL: Investor’s Playbook: Capital, Partnerships & the Path to Scale brings together investors from OXCART, The Veteran Fund, Q-Branch to unpack what it takes to get funded, and scale today. Larry Covert (OXCART), Mike Sherbakov (The Veteran Fund), Marcos Cervantes (Q-Branch)
12:10 PM | FIRESIDE CHAT — Battle-Tested: Taking Swarm Autonomy from the Front Line to Scale Drew Scheberle (NSIC) and Alex Fink (SWARMER) sit down to talk about frontline autonomy, scaling production in Texas, and the future of swarm technology.
12:30 AM | LUNCH Demo Gallery & VIP lunch hosted by MacWorks
1:15 PM | FIRESIDE CHAT Joseph Kopser in conversation with Rob Mark — Landing Zone Texas: Building Defense Tech at Mach Speed
1:35 PM | KEYNOTE: Who Is Flying That? Identity, Trust, and the Machines We Can't See - Ligeia Zeruto (Beyond Identity) turns the question every operator, regulator and defender eventually has to answer: when an autonomous system shows up in your airspace or on your network, proving what it is matters less than proving who stands behind it. Real threats, real needs, real urgency.
1:50 PM | PANEL II — Beyond the Demo: What It Takes to Become Mission-Ready: the stretch between a working prototype and a system someone will actually field is where most dual-use companies stall. Scott Firsing, PhD (CesiumAstro), Matthew Strebe (FedTech), Glenn Meyer (Saronic Technologies) and Jessica Steinhoff (BidWell) talk through what actually closes it, procurement, proof, patience, moderated by Joseph Kopser (Grayline Group).
2:40 PM | SHOWCASE Jonathan Josephson and Caleb Cienski from Quantum Interface
3:30 PM | SPECIAL GOVERNMENT ADDRESS — Why Texas: through Texas to the world — Secretary Howden on how the Lone Star State becomes the landing zone for dual-use and drone technologies, and what the state is putting behind that claim.
4:00 PM FEATURED TRANSATLANTIC CONVERSATION - Your Worst-Case Scenario Is Their Tuesday: Stefan Lindström, Consul General of Finland in Houston, and Anna Hammarlund Blixt, Consul General of Sweden in Houston, together with Alex Fink President & US CEO of SWARMER on what it looks like to build national resilience when the threat isn't hypothetical, and what the Nordic & Ukraine experience of living next to it can teach a room full of American founders and operators.
Happy Hour at Q-Branch | 6th Street
The formal program ends. The real connections continue.
Join us at Q-Branch from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm on 6th Street for drinks, fresh conversations and the next steps sparked by a day of innovation.
DRON8 Summit 2026 is co-organized with the University of Texas at Austin. Seating is curated and limited.
October 28, 2026 · Etter-Harbin Alumni Center, UT Austin · www.dron8.us
Contact founders: Andrea Hrusovska, MBA, Forbes & Jozef Hrusovsky
PARKING MAP: https://sites.utexas.edu/energy-week/wp-content/uploads/sites/5582/2015/01/UTEW-venue-parking-map.pdf
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