SF Bay Area Events: August 17-23, 2026
A ranked shortlist of 13 verified Bay Area AI, startup, robotics, founder, and builder events for August 17-23, with direct registration links and access friction stated up front.
The week at a glance
Monday is unusually dense: an all-day agent-builder program, a scaling-laws reading group, a hands-on Workato build session, a neuromorphic-computing talk, a curated builders’ gathering, and a robotics showroom night all overlap from late afternoon onward. 123456
Tuesday and Wednesday are the strongest choices for people who want a defined technical program: Modular’s sold-out developer conference, a multi-company AI developer-stack demo night, a production-agents demo program, a BYOC panel with Rootly, Twingate, and Pinecone, and a discussion of recursively self-improving AI. 7891011
Thursday has one especially direct founder-facing option: Unicorn Battle in Menlo Park, a ticketed pitch event where the public Eventbrite page says startups can meet VCs, corporations, and business angels. 12
This is a ranked shortlist for August 17-23, 2026, ordered by topic fit and visible quality signals: a concrete build, demo, or research format; named speakers or teams; credible organizers; a selective audience; or a useful attendance signal. All times are Pacific. Approval requirements, sold-out status, hidden addresses, and missing prices are access constraints, not footnotes.
| Rank | When | Pick | Topic | Why it made the list | Access friction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mon, Aug 17, 9:30 AM-7:00 PM | AI Agent Builder Day | Agent engineering and demos | Full-day talks plus a live demo day with speakers from CopilotKit, Descope, Mux, Databricks, and groundcover | Free; RSVP required; 18+ physical photo ID; exact address not listed |
| 2 | Tue, Aug 18, 6:00-9:00 PM | The AI Dev Stack | Developer tooling and production AI | Seven-minute product demos from Antimetal, Fireworks, Braintrust, and Browserbase | Free; registration required; venue details are limited |
| 3 | Wed, Aug 19, 5:30-7:30 PM | Agents in Production | Production agents and DevTools | Fireside with Netlify CEO Matt Biilmann plus demos from Scalekit, Temporal, Braintrust, Vapi, and Realmlabs.ai | Free general admission; exact address not listed |
| 4 | Wed, Aug 19, 5:30-8:00 PM | Bring Your Own Cloud | Enterprise AI infrastructure | A focused panel on deployment, secure access, and day-two operations with Rootly, Twingate, Tensor9, and Pinecone | Free; RSVP required; exact address not listed |
| 5 | Tue, Aug 18, 7:30 AM-7:00 PM | ModCon 2026 | AI compute and developer infrastructure | Modular’s annual developer conference with launches, workshops, panels, and speakers from Google DeepMind, Qualcomm, Oracle, and others | Sold out; livestream is the remaining route |
| 6 | Wed, Aug 19, 5:00-8:30 PM | Recursively Self-Improving AI & AI Neofactories | Frontier AI and deep tech | A specific discussion of metareasoning, simulation, recursive improvement, and AI-native company formation | Free; RSVP required; niche audience |
| 7 | Mon, Aug 17, 5:00-8:00 PM | Move it Forward: Workato × AI Valley | Applied building and collaboration | Bring a live project, get Workato support, meet collaborators, and compete for $1,000 in prizes | Free; bring a laptop and something concrete to improve |
| 8 | Mon, Aug 17, 6:00-9:00 PM | Trossen Academic Night @ Mission Robotics | Robotics and physical AI | Hands-on teleoperation of WidowX arms, live hardware, and access to robotics engineers | RSVP required; space limited; confirmation by email; ID check |
| 9 | Mon, Aug 17, 4:00-6:30 PM | Train-to-Test (T²) Scaling Laws | Model training and test-time compute | Snorkel AI reading group on a COLM 2026 paper with a concrete scaling-law thesis | Free; registration required; venue details are limited |
| 10 | Mon, Aug 17, 5:00-7:00 PM | Neuromorphic Computing: The Brain’s Lessons for Reducing AI Energy Consumption | Energy-efficient AI hardware | A rare talk combining spiking-neural-network research with deployment on Intel Loihi chips | Free; RSVP required; 9Zero community access may apply |
| 11 | Wed, Aug 19, 6:30-8:30 PM | Founder Dinner | Series A+ founders and scaling | A five-course, peer-level room for founders focused on fundraising, GTM, and scaling | Highly curated; intended for Series A+ or roughly $2M ARR founders; price not listed |
| 12 | Mon, Aug 17, 6:00-9:00 PM | Builders Campfire | Builder community and startup social | Small-group conversations, lightning builder stories, and a deliberately curated builder room | Free; limited spots; venue listed as Homebrew Club |
| 13 | Thu, Aug 20, 5:00-8:00 PM | Unicorn Battle in Silicon Valley | Startup pitches and fundraising | A public pitch format with VCs, corporate investors, and business angels in Menlo Park | Ticketed; Eventbrite shows options from $32.78 to $1,602.45; pitch applications use a separate route |
Monday, August 17
AI Agent Builder Day
Category: Agent engineering, security, observability, and demos. When: 9:30 AM-7:00 PM. Venue: San Francisco; the accessible page does not publish the exact address and says the event is in an Amazon building. Host: Open Source for AI, with Yujian Tang. Entry: Free, RSVP required; guests must be 18 or older and bring a physical government-issued photo ID. The page also says there is no on-site parking for scooters or bikes. Status: Open registration. 1
The program moves from talks on agent feedback, identity and MCP security, video intelligence, MLflow traces, and Kubernetes visibility into an evening demo day. Named speakers include engineers from CopilotKit, Descope, Mux, Databricks, and groundcover; the demo lineup includes Locality, Epoch, Enterprise Layer Intelligence, neatlogs, Idyllic Labs, Nexus, Bitfab, Swytchcode, inline AI, and Rover. This is the week’s best choice if you want a broad technical scan plus live projects in one day. Register on Luma.
Reading Group: Train-to-Test (T²) Scaling Laws
Category: Model training, test-time compute, and scaling laws. When: 4:00-6:30 PM; doors open at 4:00 and the talk begins at 4:30. Venue: San Francisco; the accessible page does not list the street address. Host: Snorkel AI Community Events. Entry: Free registration; boba tea and refreshments are provided. Status: Open registration. 2
Nicholas Roberts presents the group’s reading of Train-to-Test (T²) Scaling Laws: Test-Time Scaling Makes Overtraining Compute-Optimal, a paper the page says will be featured at COLM 2026. The useful distinction is that this is not a general AI meetup: it focuses on how model size, training tokens, and inference samples should be balanced when test-time compute matters. Join the reading group on Luma.
Move it Forward: Workato × AI Valley
Category: Applied AI building, automation, and collaborators. When: 5:00-8:00 PM. Venue: San Francisco; the public detail page does not list a street address. Hosts: AI Valley, Workato, and Base44. Entry: Free; bring a laptop and an existing product, prototype, workflow, or idea. Status: Open registration. 3
The format is practical rather than conference-like: project introductions, collaborator matching, a focused build session, a progress showcase, and recognition. The page advertises $1,000 in prizes, Workato expert support, food and drinks, and a curated builder community. It also lists a virtual introduction on Sunday, August 16 from 6:00-6:30 PM, so participants can arrive Monday with collaborators or a clearer build goal. Register on Luma.
Neuromorphic Computing: The Brain’s Lessons for Reducing AI Energy Consumption
Category: Neuromorphic hardware, spiking neural networks, and AI energy efficiency. When: 5:00-7:00 PM. Venue: 9Zero Climate Innovation Hub, San Francisco. Host: 9Zero’s AI Climate Cluster, hosted by Guthrie Gintzler. Entry: Free RSVP; the page describes 9Zero as a members-only community, so confirm whether this meetup accepts nonmembers. Status: Open registration. 4
Ramashish Gaurav, a Virginia Tech PhD candidate and Intel neuromorphic-computing intern, presents work on energy-efficient spiking neural networks and deployment on Intel Loihi-1 and Loihi-2 chips. The quality signal is the unusual combination of research depth and experience on real neuromorphic silicon; choose it for a focused hardware discussion, not a broad networking room. RSVP on Luma.
Builders Campfire
Category: Builder community, founder conversations, and startup social. When: 6:00-9:00 PM. Venue: Homebrew Club; no street address is published in the accessible detail. Hosts: ClawCommunity and Homebrew Club, with Crewbase Collective and community partners. Entry: Free; the page describes limited spots and a curated community. Status: Open registration. 5
The program is built around a Builder Bingo challenge, short stories from attendees, small-group campfire conversations, and open networking. The intended audience is founders, software engineers, AI builders, designers, startup operators, and technical leaders; the useful signal is the conversation format, not a named speaker lineup. Register on Luma.
Trossen Academic Night @ Mission Robotics
Category: Robotics, manipulation, imitation learning, and physical AI. When: 6:00-9:00 PM. Venue: Mission Robotics, 3001 19th St #201, San Francisco, CA 94110. Host: Trossen Robotics. Entry: RSVP required; space is limited and the organizer confirms spots by email. Bring a valid photo ID; alcohol is available only to guests 21 and over. Status: Open registration. 6
This is the most hands-on Monday option. Attendees can teleoperate WidowX arms through Glide, see the Rivet and Workbench setup running live, and talk with the engineers supporting the hardware. The audience is explicitly academic and research-oriented: faculty, PIs, graduate students, postdocs, lab managers, research engineers, and robotics clubs. Request a spot on Luma.
Tuesday, August 18
ModCon 2026
Category: AI compute, compilers, hardware, and developer infrastructure. When: 7:30 AM-7:00 PM. Venue: Grand Hyatt San Francisco. Host: Modular. Entry: Sold out for in-person attendance; the event page says the livestream is still available. The page lists early-bird tickets at $299 and general tickets at $450, but those in-person options are no longer available. Status: Sold out. 7
ModCon’s published theme is “Compute Unlocked,” with keynotes, product launches, a Mojo hands-on workshop, panels on open models and funding the AI stack, and a robotic demo. The announced speaker and participant list includes people from Google DeepMind, Qualcomm, Oracle, SemiAnalysis, MiniMax, and Poolside. It ranks high on program quality but low on immediate utility if you need a physical seat; use the event page to find the livestream route. View ModCon details.
The AI Dev Stack: Beyond Code
Category: AI developer tools, evals, agents, and web automation. When: 6:00-9:00 PM. Venue: San Francisco; the accessible page does not list the street address. Hosts: Antimetal, Fireworks, Braintrust, and Browserbase. Entry: Free registration; drinks and light snacks are provided. Status: Open registration. 8
The second edition uses a compact seven-minute lightning-talk format. Antimetal covers alert-noise triage; Fireworks covers turning failed eval cases into training data; Braintrust covers agent traces and regression testing; Browserbase covers the tools agents need to operate on the web. This is the cleanest Tuesday choice for someone comparing the infrastructure around an agent rather than watching another generic chatbot demo. Register on Luma.
Wednesday, August 19
Recursively Self-Improving AI & AI Neofactories
Category: Metareasoning, recursive improvement, simulation, and AI-native startups. When: 5:00-8:30 PM. Venue: JJ Lake Business Center. Hosts: Sanscritic and Bond AI. Entry: Free RSVP. Status: Open registration. 11
The discussion asks what it would mean for an AI system to evaluate and improve its own work, and where simulation, datasets, models, product designs, and scientific hypotheses fit into an AI “neofactory.” The audience is deliberately cross-disciplinary: founders, researchers, engineers, domain experts, robotics and biotech teams, and investors. Pick it if you want a thesis-driven frontier-AI room rather than a product launch. Register on Luma.
Agents in Production: DevTools demo night
Category: Production agents, developer infrastructure, reliability, and voice systems. When: 5:30-7:30 PM. Venue: San Francisco; the accessible page does not publish the street address. Hosts: Scalekit and Braintrust, with contributors from Temporal, Vapi, and Realmlabs.ai. Entry: Free general admission; arrival and networking run from 5:30-6:00 PM. Status: Open registration. 9
Matt Biilmann, CEO of Netlify, is scheduled for a fireside on agent runners with Ravi of Scalekit. The demo program covers safe execution state and resumption with Temporal, agent traces with Braintrust, voice-agent prompt design with Vapi, and failure modes in long-horizon tasks with Realmlabs.ai. For a digital nomad deciding whether a technical event will be substantive, this has the strongest announced speaker-and-demo combination of the week. Register on Luma.
Bring Your Own Cloud: Running Software in Customer Environments
Category: Enterprise deployment, data sovereignty, secure access, and AI infrastructure. When: 5:30-8:00 PM. Venue: San Francisco; the public detail page does not list the street address. Hosts: Rootly and Twingate Events, with Tensor9 and Pinecone participants. Entry: Free RSVP; networking, food, and drinks are listed before and after the 6:30 PM panel. Status: Open registration. 10
The panel follows the actual operating problem behind self-hosted and BYOC products: how to deploy inside a customer environment, provide least-privilege access without opening inbound ports, and handle maintenance across many installations. Announced speakers include Quentin Rousseau of Rootly AI, Michael Ten-Pow of Tensor9, Eran Kampf of Twingate, and Jörg Schad of Pinecone. This is the best fit for platform engineers, CTOs, and product teams selling into regulated or data-sensitive buyers. Register on Luma.
Founder Dinner
Category: Founder dinner, fundraising, GTM, and scaling. When: 6:30-8:30 PM. Venue: San Francisco; the address is shown after registration. Host: Brderless, with Chargebee and Sprinto. Entry: Highly curated; intended for founders who have raised Series A or above or are at roughly $2M ARR. The page does not list a price and includes a five-course tasting menu. Status: Open registration, subject to fit and approval. 13
There is no stage program or public speaker list. The quality signal is the audience constraint: honest peer conversations about fundraising, go-to-market, and scaling with founders at a similar stage. This is useful only if you match the access profile; it is not a general founder mixer. Request details on Luma.
Thursday, August 20
Unicorn Battle in Silicon Valley
Category: Startup pitches, fundraising, and investor introductions. When: 5:00-8:00 PM. Venue: 724 Oak Grove Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025. Organizer: Unicorn.Events. Entry: Ticketed; the Eventbrite page shows ticket options from $32.78 to $1,602.45. Startup pitch applications use a separate Unicorn.Events page, and the organizer says the judge list will be posted closer to the event. Status: In stock on Eventbrite. 12
The format is materially different from the week’s builder meetups: startups pitch live to VCs, corporations, and business angels, with direct fundraising as the stated purpose. The page says parking is free but limited. Treat the broad ticket range and separate pitch-application route as the main friction points, and confirm which ticket matches your role before paying. See tickets and registration.
Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August 23
No additional public event detail met the verification bar for the final three days of the window. The accessible AWS GenAI Loft launch page did not expose enough dated program, location, and registration information to list it responsibly, so the guide does not pad the weekend with an unverified invite-only kickoff. Check the Luma pages above for events that spill into the weekend or newly released spots before making a plan.
How to choose
- Want one serious build day: Start with AI Agent Builder Day. It is the only full-day, explicitly structured agent program in the shortlist, and its evening demo day gives you a second reason to stay. If you want to improve an existing project rather than listen to talks, choose Workato × AI Valley.
- Want production AI depth: The AI Dev Stack is the tightest product-demo format; Agents in Production has the strongest named speaker mix; Bring Your Own Cloud is the most useful if your work touches enterprise deployment, security, or data residency.
- Want research rather than networking: Train-to-Test is the most focused model-theory option. Neuromorphic Computing is the rare hardware-and-energy choice. The self-improving-AI discussion is broader and more speculative, but its thesis is clearly stated.
- Want physical AI: Trossen Academic Night offers actual hardware access and teleoperation. It is a better fit for robotics researchers than for someone looking for a general startup mixer.
- Want a curated room: The Founder Dinner is the most selective, while Builders Campfire is the more accessible builder-social alternative. Neither is a walk-in event.
- Want to watch instead of attend: ModCon is the obvious choice, but only through its livestream: the in-person conference is sold out.
- Want fundraising conversations: Unicorn Battle is the direct pick, but it is the least frictionless option on the list because tickets vary widely and pitch applications use a separate route.
Access notes
Monday has the highest collision risk. AI Agent Builder Day overlaps the four evening meetups, and Workato’s public agenda overlaps the start of Neuromorphic Computing, Builders Campfire, and Trossen Academic Night. Pick one anchor instead of trying to cross the city between rooms.
The cleanest open-registration choices are the AI Dev Stack, Agents in Production, Bring Your Own Cloud, Train-to-Test, and the self-improving-AI discussion. The most constrained choices are ModCon, the Founder Dinner, Trossen Academic Night, and Builders Campfire. Exact addresses remain hidden or unpublished for several Luma events; do not commute until the registration flow confirms the location.
The source mix this week is weighted toward accessible first-party Luma event pages, plus one independently verified Eventbrite detail page. I found no qualifying in-window Partiful or standalone Cerebral Valley detail with enough date, location, and registration information to include, and the official SF Tech Week calendar places its 2026 San Francisco week on October 5-11, outside this issue’s August 17-23 window. 14
Recheck every registration page before leaving, especially for approval-only rooms, hidden addresses, limited spots, ID requirements, and the unusually wide ticket range on Unicorn Battle.
References
- 1AI Agent Builder Day
luma.com
- 2Train-to-Test (T²) Scaling Laws
luma.com
- 3
- 4Neuromorphic Computing meetup
luma.com
- 5Builders Campfire
luma.com
- 6
- 7ModCon 2026
luma.com
- 8The AI Dev Stack
luma.com
- 9
- 10Bring Your Own Cloud
luma.com
- 11
- 12Unicorn Battle in Silicon Valley
eventbrite.com
- 13Founder Dinner
luma.com
- 14San Francisco Tech Week calendar
tech-week.com
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