Texas Venture Fest: San Antonio 2026
💰 TEXAS VENTURE FEST: SAN ANTONIO
CO-HOSTS: Lina Rugova & Christine Colburn
MC: Marcos Resendez
Marcos is the founder of 434 MEDIA, a San Antonio production studio developing original IP and producing content, experiences, and platforms for brands. A fourth-generation San Antonian and Air Force veteran, his career spans technology, media, advertising, entrepreneurship, and operations. He also serves on the board of Alamo Angels and is a founding member of Venture STX.
LOCAL SPONSORS: Media - Building Texas Show & 434 Media
VOLUNTEER & COMMUNITY PARTNERS: Geekdom, Emerge and Rise, Founder Institute San Antonio, INVENTURES.TEAM, and San Antonio Applied Innovation Council.
Texas Venture Fest San Antonio is built to put the city's real momentum on the table: the founders, deals, and infrastructure growth that don't always make headlines, alongside an honest look at where the ecosystem still has work to do.
Texas Venture Fest San Antonio is built around short fireside sessions, 30-35 minutes each.
Private Pre-Event 12pm - 2pm: Founders & Investors Speed Networking by TechBloc & Geekdom
Post-Event 6pm - 8pm: Geekdom Startup Bash
AGENDA:
Panel 1: Arts and Tourism
Focus: arts, culture, and San Antonio's opportunity as a destination.
Timothy Lefkowitz, Provenance
Timothy works at the intersection of fine art and software engineering. He's a published photographer with a decade-plus exhibition history (FL!ght Gallery, Fotoseptiembre USA, Forbes, USA Today), and a full-stack engineer leading Provenance's technical vision, building the infrastructure he needed as a working artist.
Suhail Arastu, Musical Bridges Around the World
Suhail leads Institutional Advancement at Musical Bridges Around the World. He serves on multiple San Antonio arts and civic boards, including the Mayor's Public Art Commission, Gemini Ink, and the Mind Science Foundation, and was named to the San Antonio Business Journal's 40 Under 40 in 2020.
Panel 2: Events and Media
Focus: events, media coverage, and San Antonio's networking ecosystem.
Michael Espinoza, Texas Business Calendar
Michael founded Texas Business Calendars, which tracks local business and networking events across San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and Houston. He's spent more than 40 years in tech and business, including roles at Microsoft, Apple, AMD, Intel, and BlackBerry, and now works as a business advisor at Launch SA, helping professionals use AI as a practical tool for growth.
Tanya Sammis, Sammis|Ochoa PR + Digital Marketing & CNTR CTY
Tanya co-founded Sammis|Ochoa PR + Digital Marketing and has handled media and communications for accounts including the San Antonio Auto & Truck Show, the AT&T Championship, and the Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner. Her firm also founded Center City San Antonio, a networking and education initiative for downtown business owners and professionals. She holds a master's in Sport Management from UT Austin and serves on the San Antonio Sports Engagement & Sustainability Committee and the Susan G. Komen board.
Uziel Hernandez Aguila, Revision News
Better known as “Uzi,” I am an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and founder of Revision News, where I lead the organization’s creative direction, team, operations, and long-term development while contributing directly to select productions. Revision is being built around a simple idea: journalism and storytelling are already decentralized. The goal is not to pull independent creators back into one centralized newsroom, but to centralize the coordination around them. By building shared resources, production support, collaboration, and distribution, Revision aims to help independent journalists and storytellers work together while preserving their individual identities, voices, and editorial independence.
Panel 3: Tech and Innovation
Focus: emerging technology, data centers, and digital connectivity.
Geoffrey Urbach, Product and Partnerships Lead, Emerging Technology, City of San Antonio
Geoffrey works across city departments to evaluate and bring in new technology, from market analysis to vendor negotiations, and leads the SmartSA Partnership, a regional collaboration of 19 organizations, including 10 public agencies, working together on innovation initiatives. Before joining the city, he managed partnerships with cities across 15 states for a civic technology company in New York City, and spent six years in Washington, D.C. advocating at the federal level on transportation, economic development, and energy and environmental policy.
Amy Barthelemy, GovParti
Amy founded GovParti, a platform that pulls government and public records, permits, budgets, water quality, court cases, and more into one searchable source instead of dozens of separate websites. A large part of her current work looks at data center development in Texas, specifically infrastructure capacity, power and water constraints, and community impact. Her research methodology is cited in Texas PUC Docket 58481.
Roman Sandoval, Allosense
Roman is a technical founder who has supported new product introductions for Apple, Tesla, and Rivian, along with nuclear scanning and military systems, working with Fortune 100 companies to launch new production lines. He founded Allosense, which builds sensors, automation equipment, and an observability platform for manufacturing testing and validation, and serves as an innovation and business advisor to the City of San Antonio.
⭐ SAN ANTONIO SIGNATURE EVENTS:
This event is part of the San Antonio Startup + Tech Week (9/28-10/2) hosted by Geekdom, the city's flagship innovation week. Check out their weekly programming.
⭐ 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.