What's happening
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM · Spieker Forum, Berkeley Haas
UC Berkeley's biggest entrepreneurship summit is back! Jointly hosted by the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program (BHEP), HEA, and the Haas Education Club. This year's theme is Human-Centered Building in an AI World, with speakers including YC and a16z founders as well as founders with successful exits. More speakers to be announced. Contact: Ayoung Cho, ayoung_cho@berkeley.edu
12:30 PM – 5:30 PM · David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley
Bring your current blockers to DECODE Conference and work them on the spot with tech execs who have founded, funded, or advised a startup. Sold out in 2025. RSVP with code SCET for 30% off. Contact: Jerel Lim, j.lim@berkeley.edu
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM · Cal Alumni House, UC Berkeley
Two kickoff hubs on November 15. Pick the one on your campus, no travel needed: Stanford students at Stanford campus, Berkeley students at Cal Alumni House, UC Berkeley. Stanford vs. Berkeley. One week. Ship an AI agent people pay for. The Big Hack Game is the campus showdown before the Big Game: build, launch, and grow an AI product with real users, solve real problems from enterprise teams, and win it for your school. The times shown are the Berkeley kickoff; the hackathon itself runs for the following week.
5:00 PM – 8:00 PM · San Francisco
Land your first 100 customers with GTM leaders from Workday, Clay, Blitzscaling Ventures, Virio, Resemble AI, Teleport and Imprezia (YC S25). Join the GTM Breakthrough Summit on November 17 in San Francisco if you're a pre-seed to Series A B2B founder with a product live and a few design partners or pilots, and you're stuck turning them into repeatable revenue.
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM · Chou Hall, Room N170, Berkeley Haas
Where deep tech meets market impact. Lean-Transfer is a Berkeley Haas course in which teams of MBA, engineering and science graduate students use Lean Launchpad methods to test the commercial potential of inventions from UC Berkeley, UCSF, Berkeley Lab, Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA. At Demo Day the cross-disciplinary teams give their final pitches on the startup concepts they have built around these technologies. Expect live judging with audience voting, a look at breakthrough research from Berkeley labs, and networking with founders and inventors afterward. The winning team receives $10,000 in prize funding from Javelin Ventures. Registration required. Hosted by Berkeley StEP. Contact: Lynsey Inthasone, linthasone@berkeley.edu
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM · Spieker Forum in Chou Hall at the Haas School of Business
Join us on May 6th at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business for UC LAUNCH Demo Day, where top startups from across the UC system pitch, compete for $50K+ in prizes, and connect with founders, investors, and innovators.
10:00 AM – 1:30 PM · Spieker Forum, Chou Hall (6th floor), Berkeley Haas, 2220 Piedmont Ave
UC LAUNCH Demo Day is the finale of the Fall 2026 UC LAUNCH Accelerator, the zero-equity accelerator for founders from across the University of California. Finalist teams pitch for $50K+ in prizes, and the audience votes for a $1,000 Audience Choice Award. Schedule: check-in from 9:30 am, finalist pitches and awards from 10:00 am, then a startup expo with lunch at 12:30 pm. Open to UC Berkeley students, faculty, staff and alumni, investors, sponsors and the wider community. Registration requires approval and space is limited, so register early. Hosted by the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program.
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM · Livestream
Join us for a special livestream with Freada Kapor Klein and Mitch Kapor, part of the A. Richard Newton Lecture Series. The Kapors are co-founders of the Kapor Center and Kapor Capital and co-authors of Closing the Equity Gap. Their work has focused on expanding opportunity and building a technology economy that works for everyone.
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM · Spieker Forum, Chou Hall (6th floor), Berkeley Haas
Berkeley StEP Showcase Day is the finale of StEP's 10-week incubator. This fall's student founder teams take the stage to pitch the ventures they have built and validated over the semester, in front of a panel of judges and a room of investors, mentors, and fellow students. Berkeley StEP is a hands-on incubator that helps early-stage founders go from idea to traction through customer discovery, MVP development, and real-world validation. StEP alumni teams have collectively raised $22.5M; alumni include Dispatch Goods, which closed a $7M Series A. What to expect: live pitches from the Fall 2026 cohort followed by judge Q&A, $6K in prizes awarded on stage, and time to meet the founders, judges, and mentors afterward. Judges: David Bloom (The House Fund), Bryce Gilleland (Cal Innovation Fund), Carly Anderson (Timescale VC), and Vikram Venkat (Cota Capital). Sponsored by Swift Ventures and O'Melveny. Who should come: investors and angels, startup operators, mentors and alumni, Berkeley students thinking about starting something, and anyone who likes watching founders pitch. Hosted by Berkeley StEP and the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program. Contact: Lynsey Inthasone, linthasone@berkeley.edu
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM · Jarvis Auditorium, Grimes Engineering Center
Berkeley's premier student startup pitch competition, plus the SCET Startup Expo. 1:00–2:00 pm, Startup Expo: meet this semester’s SCET startup teams and vote for your favorite. The winning team gets an interview with PearVC and Alchemist Accelerator. 2:00–4:00 pm, Collider Cup XIX: student teams pitch to panels of professors, investors and industry experts for the grand prize. The House Fund and Silicon Valley Legal offer 1-on-1 mentorship to selected startups. 4:00–5:00 pm, networking with light refreshments, plus a preview of next semester’s SCET classes. Open to everyone. RSVP on Luma.
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Collider Cup is SCET's all-star showcase of the best student teams each semester. Come watch teams pitch to panels of professors, investors and industry experts as they vie to win the grand prize, the Collider Cup! Contact: Joo Ae Chu, jooae@berkeley.edu