Announcing The Disrupt SF 2015 Agenda

Comment

The TechCrunch Disrupt Cup
Image Credits: Flickr (opens in a new window)

Every year, at the end of summer, a new kind of school opens in San Francisco. The school year is truncated – only three days of intense education – and the students come from all walks of life.

There are hungry makers, intent on building the next big thing. There are folks who have seen it all and are looking to be surprised. And there are the big fish looking to swallow the smaller fish – unless they get swallowed first. Those three days in September make up the entirety of TechCrunch Disrupt SF and to some the experience is an MBA in a box, three days of meetings, networking, and intense seminars that culminates in the biggest party in tech.

And you can join us September 21-23. We want you to join us. Disrupt SF is going to be amazing. We’re going to have TechCrunch Editor Matthew Panzarino talking to Dropbox’s Drew Houston. We’re going to have the top makers in the world and the best minds in bitcoin. We’re going to tell you how to start a business in this difficult funding environment by leaders who teach by example.

Troy Carter will join us as will Golden State Warrior and budding tech investor, Andre Iguodala. Former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Tsotsis will talk to Tracy Chou and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy about the state of diversity in tech. Yuri Milner and Pavel Durov are flying in to give us the state of things in Russia. And to top it off we have 24 amazing startups in the Battlefield who will compete to win the coveted Disrupt Cup. Best of all? You can stream the entire event live on our site and join in the excitement.

But we think it would be great if you could join us. You can buy tickets here or you can join our Hackathon for a chance to grab free tickets. We want to make this event inclusive.

So grab your backpack, your pencils, and your term sheets. Disrupt SF is back in town and school is back in session.

If you’re interested in future sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here. As always, we want to hear from you. Questions? Comments? Email us at tips@beta.techcrunch.com.

agenda

Monday, September 21

9:00 AM – 9:05 AM
Opening Remarks by TechCrunch

9:05 AM – 9:25 AM
Fireside Chat with Ron Conway (SV Angel) and Topher Conway (SV Angel)

9:25 AM – 9:45 AM
In Conversation with Parker Conrad (Zenefits)

9:45 AM – 10:05 AM
Is It Time To Stick A Fork In Bitcoin?: Wences Casares (Xapo), Nathaniel Popper (NYT), and Bobby Lee (BTCChina)

10:05 AM – 10:25 AM
Fireside Chat with Yuri Milner (DST Global)

10:25 AM – 10:45 AM
Fireside Chat with Drew Houston (Dropbox)

10:45 AM – 11:05 AM
Founder Stories Helen Greiner (CyPhy Works)

11:05 AM – 11:20 AM
Break

11:20 AM – 11:40 AM
In Conversation With Dr. John Kelly (IBM) and live demo of Watson

11:40 AM – 12:00 PM
Money Talks: Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures), Jeremy Liew (Lightspeed Venture Partners), Bill McGlashan (TPG Growth), Dana Settle (Greycroft Partners)

12:00 PM – 12:25 PM
A New Perspective on Culture and Industry with Snoop Dogg and Ted Chung

12:25 PM – 12:40 PM
Fireside Chat with Pavel Durov (Telegram)

12:40 PM – 1:00 PM
In Conversation with Beth Seidenberg (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Lunch

2:00 PM – 2:25 PM
Virtual Reality Is The New Reality: With Dr. Richard Marks (Sony), Paul Raphael (Felix and Paul Studios), Claude Zellweger (HTC)

2:25 PM – 6:00 PM
Startup Battlefield
Hosted by Jason Kincaid

9:00 PM – Midnight
After Party sponsored by Cheetah Mobile at Mighty, Showplace Square West, 119 Utah St., San Francisco, CA 94103

Tuesday, September 22

9:00 AM – 9:05 AM
Opening Remarks by TechCrunch

9:05 AM – 9:25 AM
In Conversation with Nick Woodman (GoPro)

9:25 AM – 9:45 AM
Fireside Chat with Nikesh Arora (SoftBank)

9:45 AM – 10:05 AM
The Nuke Kids On The Block: Jacob DeWitte (UPower) and Leslie Dewan (Transatomic Power)

10:05 AM – 10:25 AM
Founders Stories with Adi Tatarko (Houzz)

10:25 AM – 10:45 AM
Fireside Chat with Andrew (Boz) Bosworth (Facebook)

10:45 AM – 11:05 AM
In Conversation James Park (Fitbit) and Jon Callaghan (True Ventures)

11:05 AM – 11:20 AM
Break

11:20 AM – 11:40 AM
In Conversation with Alan Schaaf (Imgur) And Sarah Schaaf (Imgur)

11:40 AM – 12:05 PM
In Conversation with Jesse Vollmar (Farmlogs)

12:05 PM – 12:25 PM
Fireside Chat with Tim Westergren (Pandora)

12:25 PM – 12:40 PM
In Conversation with Matthew Prince (CloudFlare) and Michelle Zatlyn (CloudFlare)

12:40 PM – 1:00 PM
Fireside Chat with Andre Iguodala

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Lunch

2:00 PM – 2:20 PM
Fireside Chat with John Doerr (KPCB) and Colleen Taylor (Y Combinator)

2:25 PM – 6:00 PM
Startup Battlefield
Hosted by Jason Kincaid

9:00 PM – Midnight
After Party sponsored by Intuit at Public Works, 161 Erie St., San Francisco, CA 94103

 

Wednesday, September 23

9:05 AM – 9:30 AM
A Conversation About Diversity: Isis Anchalee (OneLogin), Tracy Chou (Pinterest) and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (Joyus) with Alexia Tsotsis

9:30 AM – 9:50 AM
Firside Chat with Bryan Schreier (Sequoia Capital) and Ryan Smith (Qualtrics)

9:50 AM – 10:05 AM
Founders Stories with Gagan Biyani (Sprig)

10:05 AM – 10:25 AM
Fireside Chat with Sam Altman (Y Combinator)

10:25 AM – 10:40 AM
Founder Stories with Tracy Young (PlanGrid)

10:40 AM – 11:00 AM
Fireside Chat with DJ Patil (White House) & Phaedra Chrousos

11:00 AM – 11:25 AM
Break

11:25 AM – 11:45 AM
In Conversation with Ron Johnson (Enjoy)

11:45 AM – 12:10 PM
Break It Until You Make It: Gregg Brockway (MAKE), Mark Hatch (TechShop), and Peter Weijmarshausen (Shapeways)

12:10 PM – 12:30 PM
Fireside Chat with Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures)

12:30 PM – 12:50 PM
Founders Stories with Eric Migicovsky (Pebble)

12:50 PM – 1:00 PM
Hackathon Update

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Lunch

2:00 PM – 2:20 PM
Founder Stories with Troy Carter (Atom Factory)

2:20 PM – 2:35 PM
Battlefield Alumni Update

2:35 PM – 2:40 PM
Hardware Alley Demo

2:40 PM – 2:45 PM
Selecting The Order For Startup Battlefield Finals

2:45 PM – 2:55 PM
Break

2:55 PM – 5:00 PM
Startup Battlefield Finals Hosted by Jason Kincaid

Judges:

Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital)
Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures)
Brian Pokorny (SV Angel)
Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch)
Anne Wojcicki (23andMe)
Susan Wojcicki (YouTube)

5:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Closing Cocktail Reception

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Passing The Disrupt Cup

[tc_aol_on code=”519032656“]

More TechCrunch

AWS has confirmed its European “sovereign cloud” will go live by the end of 2025, enabling greater data residency for the region.

AWS confirms will launch European ‘sovereign cloud’ in Germany by 2025, plans €7.8B investment over 15 years

Go Digit, an Indian insurance startup, has raised $141 million from investors including Goldman Sachs, ADIA, and Morgan Stanley as part of its IPO.

Indian insurance startup Go Digit raises $141M from anchor investors ahead of IPO

Peakbridge intends to invest in between 16 and 20 companies, investing around $10 million in each company. It has made eight investments so far.

Food VC Peakbridge has new $187M fund to transform future of food, like lab-made cocoa

For over six decades, the nonprofit has been active in the financial services sector.

Accion’s new $152.5M fund will back financial institutions serving small businesses globally

Meta’s newest social network, Threads, is starting its own fact-checking program after piggybacking on Instagram and Facebook’s network for a few months.

Threads finally starts its own fact-checking program

Looking Glass makes trippy-looking mixed-reality screens that make things look 3D without the need of special glasses. Today, it launches a pair of new displays, including a 16-inch mode that…

Looking Glass launches new 3D displays

Replacing Sutskever is Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s director of research.

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and longtime chief scientist, departs

Intuitive Machines made history when it became the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon, so it makes sense to adapt that tech for Mars.

Intuitive Machines wants to help NASA return samples from Mars

As Google revamps itself for the AI era, offering AI overviews within its search results, the company is introducing a new way to filter for just text-based links. With the…

Google adds ‘Web’ search filter for showing old-school text links as AI rolls out

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket will take a crew to suborbital space for the first time in nearly two years later this month, the company announced on Tuesday.  The NS-25…

Blue Origin to resume crewed New Shepard launches on May 19

This will enable developers to use the on-device model to power their own AI features.

Google is building its Gemini Nano AI model into Chrome on the desktop

It ran 110 minutes, but Google managed to reference AI a whopping 121 times during Google I/O 2024 (by its own count). CEO Sundar Pichai referenced the figure to wrap…

Google mentioned ‘AI’ 120+ times during its I/O keynote

Firebase Genkit is an open source framework that enables developers to quickly build AI into new and existing applications.

Google launches Firebase Genkit, a new open source framework for building AI-powered apps

In the coming months, Google says it will open up the Gemini Nano model to more developers.

Patreon and Grammarly are already experimenting with Gemini Nano, says Google

As part of the update, Reddit also launched a dedicated AMA tab within the web post composer.

Reddit introduces new tools for ‘Ask Me Anything,’ its Q&A feature

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

LearnLM is already powering features across Google products, including in YouTube, Google’s Gemini apps, Google Search and Google Classroom.

LearnLM is Google’s new family of AI models for education

The official launch comes almost a year after YouTube began experimenting with AI-generated quizzes on its mobile app. 

Google is bringing AI-generated quizzes to academic videos on YouTube

Around 550 employees across autonomous vehicle company Motional have been laid off, according to information taken from WARN notice filings and sources at the company.  Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported…

Motional cut about 550 employees, around 40%, in recent restructuring, sources say

The keynote kicks off at 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday and will offer glimpses into the latest versions of Android, Wear OS and Android TV.

Google I/O 2024: Watch all of the AI, Android reveals

Google Play has a new discovery feature for apps, new ways to acquire users, updates to Play Points, and other enhancements to developer-facing tools.

Google Play preps a new full-screen app discovery feature and adds more developer tools

Soon, Android users will be able to drag and drop AI-generated images directly into their Gmail, Google Messages and other apps.

Gemini on Android becomes more capable and works with Gmail, Messages, YouTube and more

Veo can capture different visual and cinematic styles, including shots of landscapes and timelapses, and make edits and adjustments to already-generated footage.

Google Veo, a serious swing at AI-generated video, debuts at Google I/O 2024

In addition to the body of the emails themselves, the feature will also be able to analyze attachments, like PDFs.

Gemini comes to Gmail to summarize, draft emails, and more

The summaries are created based on Gemini’s analysis of insights from Google Maps’ community of more than 300 million contributors.

Google is bringing Gemini capabilities to Google Maps Platform

Google says that over 100,000 developers already tried the service.

Project IDX, Google’s next-gen IDE, is now in open beta

The system effectively listens for “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams” in-real time. 

Google will use Gemini to detect scams during calls

The standard Gemma models were only available in 2 billion and 7 billion parameter versions, making this quite a step up.

Google announces Gemma 2, a 27B-parameter version of its open model, launching in June

This is a great example of a company using generative AI to open its software to more users.

Google TalkBack will use Gemini to describe images for blind people