SF Bay Area Tech Events: May 20–21
A curated morning digest of 16 tech and AI events happening tonight (Wednesday, May 20) and tomorrow (Thursday, May 21) across San Francisco, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Stanford, and Menlo Park. Wednesday highlights include the AI Agents + Full-Stack Demo Night and Ascent Valley co-founder matching night. Thursday headline: WorkOS MCP Night (4th edition, Regency Ballroom), plus a MacBook Pro-prize design hackathon, a rooftop build night on Arize AI, and data-infrastructure meetups from MotherDuck, dltHub, and LanceDB.
Sixteen events across San Francisco, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Stanford, and Menlo Park — Wednesday is a tight founder-networking evening with three overlapping demo nights, while Thursday delivers the week's biggest slate, anchored by WorkOS MCP Night at the Regency Ballroom and a design hackathon with a MacBook Pro on the line.
Coverage window: tonight (Wednesday, May 20) and tomorrow (Thursday, May 21).
Tonight — Wednesday, May 20
Agents & Bagels #2 — weekly breakfast for agent builders
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT |
| Venue | San Francisco, CA (location shared with approved attendees) |
| Host | Scalekit |
| Category | Networking — breakfast |
| Access | Invite-only, limited seats — apply via lu.ma |
| Register | lu.ma/bgrvu1wb |
The second weekly edition of Scalekit's invite-only breakfast for people shipping production AI agents. Past attendees have come from OpenAI, NVIDIA, Meta, Walmart, and YC founders. No pitches, no panels — a curated room of agent builders comparing notes on the problems that surface three months into a production deployment. 1
Scalekit builds the connectivity layer between AI agents and enterprise apps — SDK for per-user token lifecycle, scoped permissions, and tool-calling. Each week it partners with one AI company building for agent builders. Apply via lu.ma; attendance is subject to approval.
AI Agents + Full-Stack Demo Night with Convex, PostHog & AgentMail
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT |
| Venue | San Francisco, CA (register to see exact address) |
| Host | Convex, PostHog, AgentMail (YC S25), executor.sh |
| Category | AI demo day |
| Access | Free, RSVP required — food and drinks provided |
| Register | lu.ma/mayconvexagentsdemonight |
Four 15-minute demos from the full-stack agent tooling layer, each followed by Q&A: 2
- Richard Solomou (PostHog) — new Convex + PostHog integration with first-party PostHog Logs support
- Nipunn Koorapati (Convex) — backend infrastructure for agents
- Rhys Sullivan — executor.sh, the execution layer for AI agents
- Joseph M (AgentMail, YC S25) — email inbox API for AI agents
Schedule: 5:30 PM check-in, 6:10 PM welcome, 6:15 PM demos, 7:30 PM open networking with food and drinks. Convex (YC-backed backend platform) and PostHog (YC W20, open-source product analytics) both have large engineering communities in SF. If you're building or evaluating agent infrastructure, this is one of the more applied evenings this week.
Building data infrastructure for AI agents
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PDT (networking 5:30–6:00 PM, talks 6:00–7:30 PM) |
| Venue | Trellis Coworking & Events, San Francisco |
| Host | Savannah (via lu.ma) |
| Category | Technical talks |
| Access | RSVP required — drinks and hors d'oeuvres during the 5:30 PM block |
| Register | lu.ma/5zskcl5y |
Three speakers focused on the data layer under AI agents: 3
- Jaz Ku (PuppyGraph, a zero-ETL graph query layer that runs Cypher-style queries on relational data) — "When Text-to-SQL meets graphs: designing data infrastructure for agents"
- Linghua Jin (CocoIndex, an incremental data indexing framework for AI context) — "Incremental context engine for long-horizon agents"
- VeloDB (the company behind Apache Doris, an open-source real-time analytical database) — Apache Doris as a unified engine for the agentic stack
This event overlaps with the Convex / PostHog demo night. Both start at 5:30 PM — choose based on whether you're closer to the application layer (demo night) or the data infrastructure layer (this one).
CMO Dinner + Mixer: marketing leaders in the agentic era (Palo Alto)
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | Dinner 5:00–7:30 PM PDT / Mixer 7:30–9:00 PM PDT |
| Venue | Palo Alto, CA (register to see exact address) |
| Host | The CMO Community, AgentWeb, Open Future Forum |
| Category | Executive dinner + standing mixer |
| Access | Invite-only — approval required for both events |
| Register | Dinner: lu.ma/zs29d7pl / Mixer: lu.ma/628z79ci |
Two back-to-back events from The CMO Community running the same evening in Palo Alto: an invitation-only executive dinner and panel on "The New CMO Mandate: Marketing in the Agentic Era" from 5:00–7:30 PM, followed by a standing mixer for the same audience from 7:30–9:00 PM. 45
The dinner is co-hosted by AgentWeb and Open Future Forum. Both events are subject to host approval; the room is intended for CMOs and VP-level marketing leaders at funded companies rethinking distribution and workflows in the agentic era.
Hiring Dinner: building teams in hypergrowth
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT |
| Venue | Corgi SF HQ, San Francisco |
| Host | Bruno Cunha, Brooke LeBlanc, Laura Dang, Hima Tammineedi, Joseph |
| Category | Founder dinner |
| Access | RSVP required — limited space |
| Register | lu.ma/5ekrcijp |
A fireside chat and dinner at Corgi's SF HQ focused on hiring from employee one through fifty. The three panelists cover a range of growth trajectories: Jack & Jill AI (AI recruitment platform, raised $20M seed led by Creandum), Corgi (full-stack insurance platform, $160M raised at a $1.3B valuation), and Forge (enterprise process automation, backed by OpenAI and Founders Fund). 6
The format is a fireside chat followed by dinner. Space is limited; RSVP on lu.ma. If you're at the stage of making your first ten hires or scaling past twenty-five, the panel has relevant operational experience.
Ascent Valley: Meet Your Co-Founder — startup networking night
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM PDT (check-in 6:45–7:20 PM) |
| Venue | Bamboo Hut, 479 Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94133 |
| Host | Ascent Valley |
| Category | Startup networking |
| Access | Ticketed via Eventbrite — 21+ only, no refunds |
| Register | eventbrite.com — Meet Your Co-Founder SF |
Ascent Valley — a global founder and investor network — runs a structured co-founder matching event at Bamboo Hut in North Beach. Format: check-in and open mingling (6:45–7:20 PM), followed by a structured networking session (7:20–8:20 PM), then open networking through 10:00 PM. 7
The structured segment differentiates this from a plain mixer — participants are directed rather than left to self-select. Aimed at founders, builders, developers, and early-stage teams looking for co-founders or technical collaborators. Age restriction: 21+.
Women Who Build: San Francisco craft night
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT |
| Venue | 214 Grant Ave, San Francisco (Anything office) |
| Host | Anything and Casey's Craft Club |
| Category | Community — social |
| Access | Free, RSVP required — limited spots |
| Register | lu.ma/2tfrpcyt |
Claw clip bedazzling night for female builders, engineers, and women working in tech and AI at Anything's office on Grant Ave. All supplies provided — beads, rhinestones, embellishments, clips — no experience needed. 8
Anything is an AI product engineer platform that generates production-ready apps and backend infrastructure from plain English. Casey's Craft Club runs monthly crafting events around the Bay. A low-key counterpoint to the demo nights running in parallel tonight.
Tomorrow — Thursday, May 21
Agent Builders Breakfast — founders & builders in SOMA
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM PDT |
| Venue | SOMA, San Francisco (Mexican restaurant/bar — address shared with registrants) |
| Host | Michael Ducker (former Mercury, Chime & Twitter PM) and Feifan Zhou |
| Category | Networking — breakfast |
| Access | Free, RSVP required |
| Register | lu.ma/v53ex8ug |
A casual morning gathering for people building AI agents inside tech companies. No agenda, no pitches — breakfast tacos and drip coffee provided by Valet.dev (a developer tooling startup), with impromptu demos and conversation. At the time of the research pull, 90 people had marked themselves as going. 9
Hosted by Michael Ducker (product background across Mercury, Chime, and Twitter) and Feifan Zhou. The attendee profile skews toward founders and engineering leads using Claude Code, Cursor, and similar agent-native tooling. A practical way to start the day before the evening cluster.
Berkeley Robotics Community Showcase: Where Generations Meet
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM PDT |
| Venue | Berkeley, CA (address shared with registrants) |
| Host | Berkeley Gateway Accelerator |
| Category | Showcase / demo |
| Access | RSVP required |
| Register | lu.ma/epx1waw5 |
A three-stage robotics showcase covering high school, university, and startup teams, hosted by Berkeley Gateway Accelerator. The keynote is by Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley Distinguished Professor of Engineering with 450+ published papers and more than 10 US patents in robotics. 10
The showcase includes 6–8 team presentations of four to five minutes each. The high school cohort includes Berkelium (FRC Team 5419), an 80+ member team focused on inclusivity for women and underrepresented students. The afternoon runs 1–4 PM in Berkeley; register to receive the address.
What Silicon Valley can learn from Japanese innovation (Stanford)
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 4:15 PM – 5:30 PM PDT (followed by US-ATMC Spring Reception 5:30–7:30 PM) |
| Venue | Bishop Auditorium, 518 Memorial Way, Stanford, CA 94305 |
| Host | Japan Society of Northern California & Stanford US-Asia Technology Management Center |
| Category | Lecture / panel |
| Access | Free and open to all — hybrid format (in-person + online) |
| Register | events.stanford.edu — Japanese Innovation |
The John Thomas Memorial Lecture, co-presented by the Japan Society of Northern California and Stanford's US-Asia Technology Management Center (US-ATMC). Keynote by Dr. Richard Dasher, Director of US-ATMC. 11
The panel brings together Ray Hatoyama (Venture Partner, Sozo Ventures), Emiko Higashi (Council Member, METI Industrial Structure Council), and Allen Miner (Founder & Chairman, SunBridge Corp) to discuss Japan's S&T strengths, its innovation ecosystem, and opportunities for Silicon Valley investors. The event is free and available online; a Spring Reception follows from 5:30–7:30 PM. Opening remarks by Larry Greenwood, Chairman of the Board, Japan Society of Northern California. 11
SF Monthly Build Night (Arize AI rooftop)
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT |
| Venue | Arize AI rooftop, downtown San Francisco |
| Host | Arize AI |
| Category | Builder session |
| Access | Free, RSVP required — limited space; food and drinks provided |
| Register | lu.ma/arize-build-night |
Arize AI's monthly rooftop build night in downtown SF. No prizes, no judges, no pitches — bring whatever you're working on and spend three hours building alongside others. Arize AI provides food and drinks. 12
Arize AI is an AI observability and LLM evaluation platform. The build night is independent of their product — it is an open session for anyone testing and experimenting with AI tools and agents. For engineers who prefer doing over watching, this is one of the cleaner formats on the calendar.
WorkOS MCP Night: Agent Mode (#4)
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM PDT |
| Venue | The Regency Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco |
| Host | WorkOS |
| Category | Developer community event |
| Access | Free, RSVP required — limited capacity |
| Register | lu.ma/mcp-night-4 |
The fourth edition of MCP Night, this time focused on agentic AI. WorkOS — an enterprise-grade auth and identity platform (SSO, SCIM, RBAC, audit logs) used by more than 2,000 companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, and Perplexity — is hosting at The Regency Ballroom, a historic venue on Van Ness. 13
The venue and the series' track record make this the headline pick for Thursday. MCP (Model Context Protocol) — the protocol that lets AI agents call external tools and services — has become a focal point for Bay Area developer meetups in 2026; the previous three editions brought in engineers and founders from the companies building agentic infrastructure. Registration is required; check the lu.ma page for current availability.
CapCut × Design Buddies Design Hackathon
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM PDT |
| Venue | Pebblebed VC, San Francisco |
| Host | CapCut (ByteDance) and Design Buddies |
| Category | Design hackathon |
| Access | Free, RSVP required — free CapCut account needed to receive credits |
| Register | lu.ma/design-hackathon |
A four-hour design hackathon using CapCut's AI Design Studio, a browser-based image generation tool. Participants receive a prompt, build concepts individually, and submit for judging. Prizes: 1st place — 14-inch MacBook Pro; 2nd and 3rd — AirPods Pro 3; top 10 — three-month CapCut Pro membership plus branded swag. 1415
The CapCut team is traveling from China for the event. The venue is the Pebblebed VC office, founded by Pam Vagata (co-founder of OpenAI, former head of AI at Stripe) and Keith Adams (founder of Facebook AI Research). Design Buddies describes itself as the world's largest design community. Open to graphic designers, product designers, UX designers, and anyone working in visual AI tools.
MotherDuck + DuckDB May Meetup
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT |
| Venue | San Francisco, CA (co-hosted with Greybeam) |
| Host | MotherDuck |
| Category | Technical meetup |
| Access | Free, RSVP required — food, drinks, and merch provided |
| Register | lu.ma/motherduckdckdbmay |
The monthly DuckDB/MotherDuck user meetup, with three technical talks: Philip Moore (GizmoData) on GizmoSQL — a DuckDB server with Apache Arrow Flight SQL support that hits 1 TB TPC-H in under two minutes and claims ~90% lower cost than traditional cloud warehouses; Michael Driscoll (Rill Data) on re-architecting cloud analytics with DuckDB's Quack protocol; and Eddie Tejeda (HotData) on a DataFusion extension for DuckLake. 16
MotherDuck is a cloud analytics platform built on DuckDB. Data engineers and ML platform teams who have been following the DuckDB ecosystem will find all three talks applied rather than introductory.
The missing data layer for ML: dltHub × LanceDB × DataHub
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Time | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT (doors and networking from 6:00 PM) |
| Venue | Silicon Valley AI Hub, Menlo Park, CA |
| Host | dltHub, co-hosted with LanceDB and DataHub |
| Category | Technical talks |
| Access | Free, RSVP required |
| Register | lu.ma/80pocni3 |
Three talks on the open-source AI data stack: ChanChan Mao (LanceDB) on Lance as the default storage layer for multimodal AI; Elvis Kahoro (dltHub) on dltHub as the connective tissue of the AI data stack; and Gabe Lyons and Manuela Wei (DataHub) on supercharging Cortex with DataHub metadata. 17
Doors open at 6:00 PM for networking; talks run 7:05–8:05 PM. Aimed at data engineers, ML engineers, and platform teams. This event is in Menlo Park rather than SF proper — factor in the commute if you're coming from the city. Note: this overlaps with the MotherDuck + DuckDB meetup. Both are data infrastructure-focused; the DuckDB meetup skews toward analytics/OLAP, while this one covers the full ingestion-to-retrieval-to-metadata stack for ML.
Quick-reference table
| Event | Day | Time (PDT) | Location | Access | Register |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agents & Bagels #2 | Wed 5/20 | 8:00–9:00 AM | SF (approved attendees only) | Invite-only | lu.ma/bgrvu1wb |
| AI Agents + Full-Stack Demo Night | Wed 5/20 | 5:30–8:30 PM | SF (see lu.ma) | Free RSVP | lu.ma/mayconvexagentsdemonight |
| Building Data Infrastructure for Agents | Wed 5/20 | 5:30–7:30 PM | Trellis Coworking, SF | RSVP | lu.ma/5zskcl5y |
| CMO Dinner + Mixer — Palo Alto (2 events) | Wed 5/20 | 5:00–9:00 PM | Palo Alto (see lu.ma) | Invite-only | Dinner: lu.ma/zs29d7pl / Mixer: lu.ma/628z79ci |
| Hiring Dinner: Building Teams in Hypergrowth | Wed 5/20 | 7:00–9:00 PM | Corgi SF HQ | RSVP (limited) | lu.ma/5ekrcijp |
| Ascent Valley: Meet Your Co-Founder | Wed 5/20 | 7:00–10:00 PM | Bamboo Hut, 479 Broadway, SF | Ticketed, 21+ | Eventbrite |
| Women Who Build: Craft Night | Wed 5/20 | 6:30–8:30 PM | 214 Grant Ave, SF | Free RSVP (limited) | lu.ma/2tfrpcyt |
| Agent Builders Breakfast | Thu 5/21 | 8:00–9:30 AM | SOMA, SF (see lu.ma) | Free RSVP | lu.ma/v53ex8ug |
| Berkeley Robotics Showcase | Thu 5/21 | 1:00–4:00 PM | Berkeley (see lu.ma) | RSVP | lu.ma/epx1waw5 |
| Japanese Innovation @ Stanford | Thu 5/21 | 4:15–5:30 PM | Bishop Auditorium, Stanford | Free / hybrid | Stanford Events |
| SF Monthly Build Night | Thu 5/21 | 5:00–8:00 PM | Arize AI rooftop, downtown SF | Free RSVP (limited) | lu.ma/arize-build-night |
| WorkOS MCP Night: Agent Mode | Thu 5/21 | 5:30–10:00 PM | The Regency Ballroom, SF | Free RSVP (limited) | lu.ma/mcp-night-4 |
| CapCut × Design Buddies Hackathon | Thu 5/21 | 6:00–10:00 PM | Pebblebed VC, SF | Free RSVP | lu.ma/design-hackathon |
| MotherDuck + DuckDB Meetup | Thu 5/21 | 6:00–8:30 PM | SF (co-hosted with Greybeam) | Free RSVP | lu.ma/motherduckdckdbmay |
| dltHub × LanceDB × DataHub | Thu 5/21 | 6:30–8:30 PM | Silicon Valley AI Hub, Menlo Park | Free RSVP | lu.ma/80pocni3 |
Coverage window: tonight (Wednesday, May 20) and tomorrow (Thursday, May 21, 2026). Verify times, addresses, and registration status on each event's page before heading out.
Cover photo: San Francisco skyline at night with Bay Bridge by Stephen Leonardi via Pexels.
References
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- 7Meet Your Co-Founder SF — Ascent Valley via Eventbrite
eventbrite.com
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- 11What Silicon Valley Can Learn from Japanese Innovation — Stanford Events
events.stanford.edu
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