Oakland is making history with Oakland Tech Week

From September 27 to October 3, Oakland hosts its second annual Tech Week — 80+ events across the city bringing founders, investors, city leaders, and everyday business owners together under one banner: Oakland as a national hub for responsible, community-rooted tech. 

To help you navigate the week, we’ve prepared a Business Guide 

This is a week of direct access to capital, procurement opportunities, and tools your business can use starting Monday morning. Below, we’ve curated the sessions most relevant to you, organized by what your business actually needs. Also, if you’d like to participate in the Tech Fair as a company/vendor, fill out this form by EOD Monday 9/29. 

💰 Capital & Contracts

• Small Business. Big Contracts. (Tue 9/29, 6–8 PM, STAK Space) — Learn how to compete for procurement contracts with major Bay Area organizations, with UCOP, the State of California, and WRMSDC.
• The Founder Home Base (Wed 9/30, 9 AM–7 PM, Informal Spaces) — Free, drop-in co-working, office hours, and a founder showcase — no RSVP required to just come work.
• Town Business. Big Capital. (Thu 10/1, 6–8 PM, STAK Space) — A first look at a new AI-matched capital-access platform designed to connect entrepreneurs with investors.
• Oakland Ballers Founders Day (Friday 10/1 10 AM – 2 PM, Raimondi Park) Cohosted by Kapor Center Investments, Oakland Ballers, SomosVC, BLCK VC, ICA Fund, and the City, over 100+ founders and investors, ecosystem builders, and friends will gather on the field at the Oakland Ballers ballpark for a fun, interactive, and dedicated activation to connect East Bay founders building consequential businesses to each other and the broader ecosystem. 
• The Venture Forum (Fri 10/1 12PM- 5PM, Kissel Hotel) Cohosted by Google for Startups and Transparent Collective, this half day venture focus summit brings founders, investors, and operators together for an afternoon on where capital is going in Oakland and who it actually reaches. It opens with a fireside with an Oakland-rooted builder, then four panels: physical AI, robotics, and infrastructure as a path to local jobs and wealth; catalytic capital and philanthropy unlocking what traditional venture cannot; why network and operating experience now outperform capital alone; and how to get from early MVP to venture scale. Closes with a rooftop reception.

🤖 Practical AI for Your Business

• IA para el papeleo del negocio (Tue 9/29, 8:30–9:30 AM, Unity Council) — A Spanish-language workshop on using AI to handle small-business paperwork.
• Women Build Oakland: From Idea to App in One Day (Wed 9/30, 9 AM–6 PM, Tribune Building) — A no-code AI buildathon turning an idea into a working app in a single day.
• AI Prompting Workshop (Sat 10/3, 9–11 AM) — A beginner-friendly crash course for owners who want practical AI skills, not jargon.

👷 Workforce & Talent

• Investing in Ethical AI & CS Education (Tue 9/29, 10 AM – 12 PM, Northeastern) This forum will feature leaders from education, policy research, and philanthropy who will discuss the need to invest in equitable, ethical CS/AI education and integration—and highlight promising Oakland approaches that equip students and educators with the knowledge and agency to become critical consumers and ethical producers of technology. Speakers include leaders from the Kapor Foundation, Oakland Unified School District, The Oakland Education Fund, Stanford University, Northeastern University Oakland
• Career as a Brand System™ — Express Edition (Wed 9/30, 12–1 PM, Northeastern University Oakland) — A fast-track career-branding workshop, useful for hiring managers and job-seeking staff alike.
• AI Landscape and Career Readiness (Thu 10/1, 11 AM–1 PM, Northeastern) — NVIDIA’s Louis Stewart on where AI is taking the job market, and how to hire and train for it.
• The 10x Hackathon (Sat 10/3 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM) – Alameda County has set a ten-year moonshot: end homelessness and put every resident who wants a job in one. On the closing day of Oakland Tech Week, the County and the City of Oakland bring their hardest problems into one room and ask Oakland to build. Every team gets three minutes in front of County, City, and community judges. Cash prizes of $2,500, $1,500, and $1,000 go to the top three teams, and winners present on the main stage at the Oakland Tech Week finale that night. Every submission goes to Alameda County, and winners are invited to a small meetup at County offices in October. Every participant gets a ticket to the E-40 concert that night.

🏛️ Where City Hall Meets Business

• Responsible Innovation: A Vision for Oakland’s Future  (Monday 9/28) — Join Mayor Barbara Lee, Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D., Mitch Kapor, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook for an invite-only convening of philanthropic leaders, mission-driven investors, founders, and elected officials to kick off Oakland Tech Week with a discussion about Oakland’s future and how the city can become a model for responsible innovation. 
• AI in the Public Interest: Oakland Civic Projects in Action (Tue 9/29, 6:30–8 PM, Oakland City Hall) — See how the City itself is using AI, and where local businesses might plug in.
• Omidyar Network’s Oak x Tech (Thurs 10/1, 10:30 AM – 5 PM ) ​Tech X OAK is a vibrant community gathering that is bringing together founders, policymakers, technologists, investors, advocates, and community builders during Oakland Tech Week to explore the future we want and how to get there.

🎉 And Because Oakland Is Oakland
The week isn’t all boardrooms and pitch decks. Catch Black Wine Wednesday supporting Black-owned businesses (Wed 9/30), a hydroponic-farm happy hour at Food Tech Happy Hour (Tue 9/29), and the week closes big with HiiiWAV Fest on Saturday, October 3 — a free, family-friendly festival with tech demos, a health fair, and a live concert featuring E-40 and the Soul Slappers.

See the full schedule and register: oaklandtechweek.com/events