Note: we are charging $10 just to help with food and drinks, we already have an awesome space. If you don’t feel like paying, please choose the INVITEE ticket (free). Thanks!
San Diego AI Showcase (North County)
A Homebrew-style night for AI experiments and demos. Safe space. No recordings! Just sharing and learning.
This is a monthly, in-person gathering for San Diego founders who are actively building with AI, and who are willing to show their work before it’s perfect.
Inspired by the original Homebrew Computer Club, where builders like Steve Wozniak casually shared what they were experimenting with, this is a space for real demos, early prototypes, bold ideas, and honest lessons. No polished pitch decks. No sales. No pressure.
This is about learning in public, helping each other think sharper, and accelerating progress through thoughtful feedback.
The San Diego AI Showcase is designed to grow a tight, curious, builder-driven founder community in the region.
What you’ll see
• Early AI products, tools, agents, workflows, and experiments
• Things that are half-working, just launched, or still a little rough
• Lessons from what didn’t work (often the most valuable part)
• Live demos, screen shares, short walkthroughs
Format
• 5–10 founders present for ~10 minutes each
• 3-minute Q&A and group discussion after every presentation
• Hang out, meet other builders, and keep the conversation going
Who this is for
• Founders actively building with AI (pre-seed to growth)
• Engineers, designers, and product leaders experimenting hands-on
• People who value curiosity, humility, and substance over hype
What this is not
• Not a pitch night
• Not an investor demo day
• Not a sales event
Just builders helping builders.
📍 Event Details
When: June 3 (Wednesday), 2026, from 6 pm to 9 pm
Where: LVLUP USA (North County San Diego. Vista, California)
Organizer: Demian Borba, Founder and CEO of Pactto (Stanford StartX S25, ex-Adobe, Intuit, PayPal, BlackBerry)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demianborba/
If you’re interested in presenting, attending, or shaping the future of this meetup, please email Demian at [email protected]. The goal is to create something long-lasting for San Diego — a place where meaningful work gets shared early, and momentum compounds over time.
Presenters:
6:15 pm
Demian Borba, Founder and CEO of Pactto (Stanford StartX S25, ex-Adobe, Intuit, PayPal, BlackBerry)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demianborba/
Title: Pactto Distribution
Details:
Learn what Pactto is doing to tackle distribution, from a CAB (customer advisory board) to a community on Discord, what is working and what is not working.
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6:30 pm
Chad Bender, Principal Product Manager shipping AI products, AI Agents, Agentic Workflows, 0-to-1. Currently building Concierge (agentic events AI). Previously Oracle, 15Five, Cordial, Sun Microsystems
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadbender/
Title: CONCIERGE (go-concierge.com)
Details:
A multi-agent workflow: a prospector agent that discovers events pulling from 100+ data sources, a tastemaker agent that curates the best events, and a QC agent that vets the final subscriber digest for dupes, dates, and quality bar. Data pipeline, Claude AI layer, Supabase backend, Resend email, self-serve onboarding. It’s live across 50 cities in North America.
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6:45 pm
Cammie Clay and Sonia Sarao, Co-founders of faibuddy
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cammieclay
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-sarao/
Title: Distribution – What NOT to do!
Details:
Cammie and Sonia will share all their lessons from trying to distribute the first version of faibuddy.
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7 pm
Maya Borba (11 years old), founder of CaliFrames
Title: Finding PMF on Facebook Marketplace and social media
Details:
Maya is an 11-year-old aspiring skateboarder who broke her arm while training for an important East Coast contest. During recovery, she turned frustration into creativity and started experimenting with AI-generated posters. After testing different platforms, everything changed when she posted her work on Facebook Marketplace. That’s when CaliFrames started gaining real traction and Maya found her first signs of product-market fit. In this demo, she’ll share how she’s building the business, from building her site on Lovable, to using AI to create custom posters, and rapidly iterating through social media feedback to evolve both her product and distribution strategy.
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7:15 pm
Jonah (the Howl Guy) Peake 🐺 (Founder of The Social Coyote, ex-Techstars)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonahpeake/
Title: Branding as Distribution: How Coyote Co Built a Connection Layer for San Diego
Details:
Networking can have the personality of a DMV waiting room. Business cards, name tags, awkward small talk. Jonah had a different idea. So he left his den, built a pack, found his voice, and made “howl yeah” a thing. Turns out San Diego was ready for it.
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7:30 pm
Todd Bashor (Founder and Builder of Founder Guide)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddbashor/
Title: Make Posting Regularly Easier
Details:
For most people creating social media posts is a chore they avoid. Todd will talk about key ways to make the process faster and easier. Then he will present how Founder Guide supports the process.
