AWS Community Day Sacramento 2026
Join us for a full day of AI building, learning, and startup innovation at AWS Community Day Sacramento.
The day includes a hands-on AI Hackathon, a two-hour AI Conference, the SMUD AI-Native Startup Showcase & Networking
⚡ BACK TO THE FUTURE: AI BUILDERS EDITION HACKATHON | 10:00 AM–2:00 PM
“Where we’re going, we don’t need boilerplate!”
Teams of interns and technical professionals will race against the clock to ideate, build, and pitch a real product from scratch using AI-assisted development tools.
Bring your own “DeLorean”—Cursor, Kiro, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Bolt, Lovable, v0, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, custom agents, MCP servers, or whatever AI tools help you ship.
Teams will:
Pick a real-world problem worth solving
Build a working product using AI development tools
Create a pitch deck
Present a live demo and pitch
Full-stack apps, agents, automations, developer tools, AI harnesses, social-impact products—if you can dream it and ship it, it counts.
Projects will be judged on real-world impact, innovation and creativity, technical execution, and presentation and vision.
Awards include the Outatime Award, Great Scott Award, Flux Capacitor Award, and Hoverboard Award.
No pre-built projects. Everything starts from zero at kickoff.
🧠AI CONFERENCE | 2:00–4:00 PM
Conversations exploring where AI is creating new opportunities, how it is reshaping infrastructure and enterprise, and what real-world deployment looks like across startups, government, and industry.
SESSSIONS
➡️Powering AI at Scale: The Energy Infrastructure Behind the AI Economy
Parag Soni — SVP, Global Head of Utility Strategy & Engagement, Prologis [the world’s largest logistics real estate company, which owns and manages approximately 1.3 billion square feet across 20 countries and is expanding into data center and energy infrastructure]
➡️What’s Ahead in AI
Tony Ten Broeck — Solutions Architect-Global Public Sector Partners, AWS
➡️AI in Government: From Innovation to Real-World Impact
Hong Sae — Chief Information Officer, City of Roseville
Jennifer Collins — IT Manager, Placer County Sheriff’s Office
➡️From Startup to Government Deployment: Building an AI Company to Reinvent the Driving Test
Ravi Teja Chadalavada — Founder & CEO, Sapios
➡️AWS Technology Spotlight: Real-Time Video AI — Inside AWS Elemental Inference
Brian Thomas— Head, Video Compression and AI, AWS Elemental
➡️The AI-Powered Enterprise: Transforming How Business Works
Chris Le — CallTower [AI-powered enterprise communications and customer experience provider]
Daniel Eickhoff — Gradient Cyber [AI-powered managed cybersecurity and threat detection]
Meter [AI-powered autonomous network infrastructure as a service]
➡️ SMUD AI-Native CleanTech Accelerator Showcase Introduction
Heidi Sanborn — Board of Directors, SMUD
11 new startups will give a one-minute introduction pitch, followed by live demos during the Startup Showcase.
➡️Lessons from 200 AI Startups Funded in 2026: What Funding Trends Reveal About Where New Opportunities Are Emerging
🍷NETWORKING & SMUD AI-NATIVE STARTUP SHOWCASE | 4:00–5:00 PM🏆
End the day by connecting with founders, technologists, investors, industry leaders, and members of the regional innovation community over food and drinks.
Founders from HUMANBULB’s SMUD-sponsored AI-Native Startup Accelerator will showcase the companies and working AI-native products they have been building, giving attendees an opportunity to meet the founders, see their products firsthand, and discover emerging startups being built in the Sacramento region.
Come for the startups—and stay for the networking, food, drinks, and conversations that happen when the region’s AI community comes together.