San Diego AI Showcase (North County)
San Diego AI Showcase (North County)
A Homebrew-style night for AI experiments and demos.
We’re launching a new monthly, in-person gathering for San Diego founders who are actively building with AI — and who are willing to show their work before it’s perfect.
Inspired by the original Homebrew Computer Club — where builders like Steve Wozniak casually shared what they were experimenting with — this is a space for real demos, early prototypes, bold ideas, and honest lessons. No polished pitch decks. No sales. No pressure.
This is about learning in public, helping each other think sharper, and accelerating progress through thoughtful feedback.
The Founders AI San Diego group is designed to grow a tight, curious, builder-driven founder community in the region.
What you’ll see
Early AI products, tools, agents, workflows, and experiments
Things that are half-working, just launched, or still a little rough
Lessons from what didn’t work (often the most valuable part)
Live demos, screen shares, short walkthroughs
Format
3–5 founders present for ~10 minutes each
Open Q&A and group discussion after every presentation
Hang out, meet other builders, and keep the conversation going
Who this is for
Founders actively building with AI (pre-seed to growth)
Engineers, designers, and product leaders experimenting hands-on
People who value curiosity, humility, and substance over hype
What this is not
Not a pitch night
Not an investor demo day
Not a sales event
Just builders helping builders.
📍 Event Details
When: Every second Tuesday of the month
First meetup: February 10, 6:00 pm
Where: LVLUP USA (North County San Diego. Vista, California)
Organizer: Demian Borba, Founder and CEO of Pactto (Stanford StartX S25, ex-Adobe, Intuit, PayPal, BlackBerry)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demianborba/
If you’re interested in presenting, attending, or shaping the future of this meetup, please email Demian at [email protected]. The goal is to create something long-lasting for San Diego — a place where meaningful work gets shared early, and momentum compounds over time.
Presenters
Tom Krcha, Founder and CEO of Pencil.dev (a16z Speedrun, ex-Adobe, Miro)
6:15 pm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkrcha/
Title: Vibe Design with Pencil.dev
Details:
Quick demo of using Pencil.dev to vibe design, going from an idea, to design, to code in minutes. Plus some valuable insights from a top founder in the era of AI.
Akshay Nagesh, Co-founder of KORA (Artificial Intelligence Researcher - San Diego Supercomputer Center)
6:30 pm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshay-nagesh-79710a3a7/
Title: Kora, an AI-first autonomous platform for property maintenance coordination
Details:
Akshay will walk through what we’ve learned while building Kora, an autonomous AI platform for property maintenance and operations. He’ll cover how we approached early product development, customer discovery with property managers, and the challenges of designing AI systems that operate in real-world workflows rather than just act as assistants. The session will include a short demo of Kora and a deck presentation.
Cameron Yenche, Technical Product Manager at SimplifyPI.ai (M.S. Data Science at UC Berkeley, ex-Microsoft)
6:45 pm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronyenche/
Title: Identifying complex moves
Details:
Cameron will show how Eleve is building a robust 7-camera NDI data pipeline combined with a BlazePose computer vision framework to detect skateboard tricks. He will break down the biggest technical challenges they faced, what did not work at first, and the solutions that helped make the system reliable in real-world conditions.
Devan Velji, Mathematics & Economics + Marine Science at UC San Diego
7:00 pm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devanvelji/
Title: Bhol: an iOS app for learning languages
Details:
Devan will share how he used Claude Code to build and scale his app, including the pros, cons, and things to watch out for. He will cover how he automated the content generation pipeline for flashcards and the extensive testing setup he implemented to keep quality high as the app evolved.
Nicolas Dos Santos, SWE at UCSD (Mathematics - Computer Science Freshman at UCSD, Cyber Defense Operations at US Air Force National Guard)
7:15 pm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas2007/
Title: CTRL
Details:
CTRL intervenes at the exact moment you try to open an addictive app, guiding you through breathing exercises and healthier alternatives instead of simply blocking access. It combines real-time intervention with a psychology-backed 20-day challenge and adaptive AI coaching based on your triggers. The focus is not restriction, but learning how to pause and make better choices when urges hit.
Sanjay Marathe, Computer Science at UC Irvine, UROP, SWE at Geodo (EF F25), Grangou
7:30 pm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjay-marathe-2257811b0/
Title: Voice Agents for DevOps (iOS app)
Details:
Sanjay will demo VercelOS, a voice-to-PR mobile app that uses a LiveKit agent to transcribe feature requests with Deepgram, generate React components via the Vercel MCP server, and create pull requests using GitHub’s API. He will also share how he built the app in five hours at the SDx hackathon and the lessons learned while designing a DevOps tool under tight time constraints.
Jeran Fraser, CEO at Flag50, building the future of flag football by combining technology, community, and AI. Serial entrepreneur.
7:45 pm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reserve/
Title: Building Flag50 with AI
Details:
Before the AI era, Jeran relied on large engineering teams to build successful products like Stact. Today, he is setting the vision and accelerating development himself using multiple AI tools. He will share lessons from building Flag50 and how AI has changed what is possible for small, focused teams.