The real economy is a design problem.
For two decades the best American engineering talent was organized around advertising, e-commerce, and enterprise SaaS. The result: we can target you on six platforms simultaneously, but we cannot reliably manufacture a drone, a reactor, a ship, or a missile at national scale. That imbalance is a civilizational risk, and it is correctable.
SoCal Deep Tech Week exists because Southern California — from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach to San Diego — is the densest concentration of deep-tech builders, primes, labs, and capital in the world. The hardware never left. What was missing was a shared room, on a shared week, where the people building the physical future could coordinate in the open.
We are that room. Once a year, for five days, in Long Beach.
Five things we won't compromise.
Builders First
Founders and operators set the agenda. Investors, primes, and policymakers are in service of the people actually making the thing.
Capital of Record
We publish the capital in the room — funds, primes, and LPs — because transparency accelerates real matches and filters out theater.
Press-Open
The main stages are on the record by default. Breakthroughs deserve coverage; we'd rather be scrutinized than insular.
No Pay-to-Stage
Sponsors sponsor; they do not buy keynote slots, panel seats, or favorable programming. The firewall is absolute.
One Week, One City
We resist franchising. SDTW is Long Beach in September. Regional density is the product; diluting it across markets is how conferences die.
The Coastline
We are unapologetically Californian. The Pacific edge built the aerospace century and will build the next one. We program accordingly.
What counts as deep tech — to us.
Every convening has a scope. Ours is intentionally narrow. Deep tech, as SDTW defines it, means technologies whose value creation runs through atoms, not just pixels — where the product touches the physical world, the supply chain is real, and the capital cycle is measured in years.
In scope:
- Aerospace, space, and defense manufacturing
- Energy generation, storage, and grid infrastructure
- Advanced manufacturing, robotics, and industrial automation
- Maritime, logistics, and critical minerals
- Bioindustrial, climate, and nuclear
- The enabling software only where it is load-bearing for the above
Out of scope — at least for this convening:
- Consumer internet, social, and ad-tech
- Horizontal enterprise SaaS without a physical thesis
- Pure financial infrastructure and crypto speculation
- Generative AI tooling absent a deep-tech application
This is a point-of-view, not a verdict. Other convenings serve those categories well. We are not them. Keeping the scope narrow is how we keep the signal high.
Builders are owed convenings that take their domain seriously. Serious means narrow. — SDTW Editorial, 2026The rules of the room.
SDTW is attended by founders, operators, investors, primes, government stakeholders, and press. For the Week to function, everyone agrees to the following.
Attribution & Chatham House
Main-stage sessions are on the record unless marked otherwise. Workshops, roundtables, and host-led side events are Chatham House Rule by default: participants are free to use information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of speakers or other participants may be revealed.
Press
Credentialed press identify themselves on arrival and when reporting. Embargoed material is shared in advance and honored to the minute. Off-the-record means off the record — including paraphrase, subtweet, and "a source familiar." One violation forfeits future credentials.
Conduct
SDTW is a working event. We expect the same standard of conduct we'd expect in any professional setting: no harassment, no intimidation, no recruiting under false pretenses, and no lobbying of government staff outside of scheduled policy sessions. Substantiated violations result in removal without refund and a one-edition ban.
Export Control & Sensitive Technology
Presenters of ITAR / EAR-controlled material are responsible for their own compliance and audience screening. SDTW provides closed-door formats on request. The Week is not a cleared environment and should never be treated as one.
Reporting
Any attendee can report a violation — in person to program staff (red lanyards) or by email to conduct@socaldeeptech.com. Reports are reviewed within 24 hours by at least two members of the program team, independent of sponsorship.
What we don't do.
A convening is partly defined by what it refuses. For clarity, and so partners, press, and attendees can calibrate, here is the current list.
- We do not sell speaking slots, panel seats, or programming influence to sponsors.
- We do not publish attendee lists, contact information, or badge-scan data to sponsors or third parties.
- We do not charge founders to attend the core program.
- We do not allow recruiting events that pose as technical sessions.
- We do not host content that exists primarily to serve a fundraising narrative rather than a builder audience.
- We do not franchise the SDTW name. Regional convenings using our marks are host-council partnerships, governed by written agreement.
This list expands over time. When it does, the change is logged at the bottom of this page and communicated to partners and press the same week.
What we're comfortable being quoted on.
For press on deadline: the following statements are approved for attribution to "SDTW" or "SoCal Deep Tech Week organizers" without further clearance. Anything outside this list requires a named interview — reach out to partnerships@ and we'll route you.
SoCal Deep Tech Week is the annual working session for the people building the physical future of America — in aerospace, energy, manufacturing, maritime, and nuclear. We convene once a year, in Long Beach, because the hardware never left the coast.
SDTW covers deep tech — technologies whose value creation runs through atoms, not just pixels. We program aerospace, space, defense, energy, advanced manufacturing, maritime, and the critical infrastructure that holds them up.
For two decades, the best American engineering talent was pulled toward software and advertising. Rebuilding the industrial base means pulling it back — and doing it in the open, in the room, with the capital and the primes and the policymakers all present. That's what the Week is for.
The Pacific edge of the United States built the aerospace century. It has every ingredient — the primes, the labs, the ports, the universities, the talent — to build the next one. SDTW exists to make that obvious and to make it coordinated.
Document v3.0 · Edition 003