San Diego: Five.Ten.Thirty
Scaling a Better Version of Silicon Valley
By Mike Krenn, CEO of Connect
The San Diego Innovation Sector is taking over Petco Park on April 28. Mayor Todd Gloria has declared it Innovation Day in San Diego! Please join us. Register here. It’s time to celebrate, and simultaneously continue our collective move forward to thoughtfully scaling up a more robust and more inclusive economy across our megaregion.
If staying ahead of the curve intrigues you, this is your chance to see up close and personal the cutting edge technologies and science that is leading our economy into the future. Software, comms, artificial intelligence, therapeutics, genomics, diagnostics, bluetech, cleantech, defense tech, cyber, drones, med device .. part of what makes San Diego so freaking cool is — it is ALL here.
Five.Ten.Thirty? Please stop for a second and picture Spring 2024 in San Diego. What do you want the innovation economy to look like here? What do you want to be doing professionally and personally? Then 2027 and then 2032 — what do you want our mega-region to look like?
People often forget what it was like here just five years ago. One unicorn CEO recently told me he lost term sheets back in 2016 — with one vc telling him it was because he was operating in “backwater San Diego.” Another prominent VC (board member of NVCA) told me his firm had “zero interest and would not do a deal in San Diego.” In 2016, the terms often included moving to the Bay Area upon financing. There was very little capital here. But we had a vision, and we executed. And we’re not done by a longshot.
In the last five years, we executed on some “crazy ideas.” We opened an office in SF for startups to use free-of-charge. We held a recruiting fair for engineers a mile from Google’s campus. We hustled.
Now we’re taking over Petco Park. That’s how far we’ve come. And while we deserve a party (and we WILL party) — this is more than just that. It’s time for the world to hold San Diego up as an innovation economy on par with San Francisco and Boston. You might think that is lofty. That’s what people said five years ago, too. The fact is — no other markets have the breadth and depth across both life sciences and tech than SF, Boston and San Diego. And we also have defense and Mexico. It’s all here — we just gotta keep executing. Together.
April 28 is a marker, another milestone — executing on a vision. Our region is at an inflection point: We have a strong foundation in place, with a genuine opportunity to build a more inclusive innovation economy across the entire megaregion.
We just need to keep executing.
We need the corporations, city leaders, and market influencers to collaborate and lead. We have momentum. Now it’s about intelligently layering on elements that move us forward — to that vision of what we want OUR collective region to look like in the future.
At Connect, we are executing with THAT focus. It’s why we’re calling the effort Five.Ten.Thirty. Because the decisions we make today, and the actions we take — will impact our friends, our families — and all the friends and families we do not know — in this community for years to come.
Five.Ten.Thirty is more than an event. It’s an idea grounded in action — to be better. Personally, collaboratively, and with exponential impact.
Come join us and be a part of it.
And a HUGE thank you to the sponsors who are stepping up to help our community. Our title sponsors: Illumina, GoSite, Softbank and Vertical Venture Partners. Our DEI sponsors: Eli Lilly and the City of San Diego. And our event sponsors — Cloudbeds, Soci, and Peakspan.
One last personal data point to share: I’m honestly a little giddy looking forward to seeing 100+ companies and learning more about what they do. AI, IOT, ML, CRSIPR .. pick your acronym. It’s super cool to see the depth of tech and science coming out of this region. To talk with all of these incredibly smart people, and to see now, where the future is going to be in five, ten and thirty years. Be curious — it’s a good thing.
All of this is going on in our backyard. San Diego is no longer a city of companies being acquired. We’re building innovative, global companies. Life-changing technologies. This is your chance to see them up close and personal, all with a Friar Frank in hand in the best damn baseball park in America.
This is where WE live!
We need to both appreciate and activate.
We have a unique opportunity in front us. Together we can build a better future, and build real inclusive opportunity for all the individuals in our community — across the SD/TJ mega-region.
Let’s Do This San Diego. Five.Ten.Thirty. Register here.
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