​Howdy Amigos!

​Please come join us as we host our 3rd Annual Texas Venture Fest Houston - The AI Edition at The Innovation Hub at 801 Travis powered by invincible in Downtown Houston.

​AGENDA

​8:30 AM to 10:30 AM - Cup of Joey Texas Venture Fest Houston Edition (14th Floor Coffee Lounge)

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​11 AM to 12:30 PM - Lunch at Understory

​Grab a friend or make new friends over lunch as we take the tunnels to Understory.

​1 PM to 3:20 PM - The AI Edition (The Majestic 17th Floor)

• ​1 PM - Welcome

• ​1:10 PM - The State of AI

  • ​Leon Coe, Founder of Houston AI Club

  • ​Monica Gordillo, Cloud & AI Solutions Architect, DHI Telecom Group; AnitaB.org Houston Community Leader

  • ​Arnold Castro, AI Professor; Former Asst. Dean of AI Texas A&M Mays Business School

  • ​Oleg Lysiak, Cofounder, Beezi AI; Founder, Rocket Network

• ​1:40 PM - AI Developer Ecosystems

  • ​Brad Groux, Cofounder, Digital Meld; Open Source Maintainer, Microsoft Integrations OpenClaw Foundation

  • ​Adrianne Stone, Founder, Bayou City Startups; Lovable Houston Ambassador

  • ​Tony Mamedbekov, Director of Engineering SYNERO Consulting; Founder Info Dump

• ​2:10 PM Investing - How Investors Build Venture Ecosystems - Dr. Sunny Zhang and Jesse Martinez

• ​2:40 PM - Finance & AI

  • ​Sumedha Gamage, Founder, Nexentra AI

  • ​Carlos Estrada, Cofounder, Orbbit

  • ​Patrick Jones, EVP Sales, Logically

• ​3:10 PM - Energy & AI

  • ​Katie Mehnert, CEO, The Bee Suite; CEO, ALLY Energy; Representative, National Petroleum Council

  • ​Fernando Hernandez, Business Ambassador to Scotland; Board Chairman, Society for Low Carbon Technologies; External Advisor - NVIDIA Inception Program

​3:30 PM to 5:30 PM - AI Salon Houston Launch: AI and the Art of being Human (The Innovation Studio 16th Floor)

​Live fireside chat with Landi Spearman and Jesse Martinez with audience participation.

​We'll have a few books to raffle away too.

​6 PM to 8 PM - The Houston AI Club presents: AI Governance and Cyber Panel (The Majestic 17th Floor)

​The next AI challenge isn’t adoption. It’s responsible adoption.

As organizations move from experimenting with AI to deploying it at scale, new questions come with it:
→ What data can teams safely share?
→ Who decides which tools and models are approved?
→ How do you create guardrails without slowing innovation?

Join us for a panel discussion with Michael Farnum, Tommy Todd - CISSP, Salim Gheewalla, and Joe Alapat on AI Governance & Cybersecurity. We will be exploring how organizations can balance AI’s opportunities with the security, governance, and risk considerations that come with them.

AI adoption is happening. Now comes the work of doing it responsibly.

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​Biketoberfest 2026

​🚴 ~5:30-6 PM: wheels up
🍻7:00 PM Oktoberfest beers at the Second Draught
Bring your bike. Bring your friends. Grab a beer.

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​COMMUNITY PARTNERS

​Checkout last year's event here to see the archive. Follow Texas Venture Fest on LinkedIn & Instagram to stay up-to-date and check out TVF: Houston 2025 here.

​​​⭐ TEXAS' SIGNATURE INNOVATION EVENTS:

​The Lone Star State shouldn’t have lone star founders. The Texas Venture Fest is a day of networking and programming highlighting the ecosystem of entrepreneur support. More than 15 cities simultaneously host this statewide phenomenon, across our small towns and the nation's biggest metropoles, 3,500+ Texans gather to help innovation flourish.

​This event is part of the Texas Startup & Tech Week (9/28-10/2), the state's flagship innovation week. The sister signature event is the Texas Venture Gala & Forum, the largest convening at the Texas State Capitol & awards dinner in downtown Austin for innovators and investors from across the state.