About This Event
For those 21+ and above we'll be checking ID and issuing wristbands so you can enjoy bar service.
Dreams of Steel is the science-fiction themed closing party to Deep Tech Week, week long decentralized conference bringing together thousands of people from across the Bay Area hardware and deep tech startup ecosystem.
The closing party starts off like a usual tech event - pizza and presentations from founders and investors in Aerospace and Robotics and then evolves into a full blown science-fiction themed party giving a vivid glimpse of our near-term future in a world of humanoid robots.
Expect live music, dance floor, open bars, themed rooms, outdoor fire pits, VIP lounge.
And Robots.
Robots to dance
and Robots to fight....
Tickets:
Tech Talks - Free
Party - $40, comes with free giga-glasses and open bar
VIP - $420 - access to VIP lounge
Doors open at 5:00PM
Schedule:
5:00 - 6:15pm - Open Bar Reception + Pizza Party
6:30 - 8:30pm - Tech Talks in Aerospace and Robotics
8:30 PM - late night - Live music, themed rooms, burning man meets science and engineering innovation with humanoid robotics
Speakers:
\- Matt Ocko, founder of DCVC, a $4billion AUM Deep Tech fund
\- Andrew Duggleby, founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace developed rotating detonation jet engines
\- Bob Boyd, founder and CEO at ATSquared Aerospace developing cargo freight airships
\- Robert Rose, founder and CEO of Reliable Robotics developing autonomous navigation and control systems for commercial aircraft
\- Jan Liphardt, founder and CEO of OpenMind AGI, developing OS architecture for intelligent and safe machines
DJ's and musical artists lineup announced soon
Speakers
Matt Ocko
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, DCVC
Matt Ocko is the co-founder and co-managing partner of DCVC (Data Collective), a premier deep tech venture capital firm managing billions in assets that invests in transformative startups advancing U.S. national security, economic resilience, and frontier technologies—from quantum computing and synthetic biology to robotics, AI, defense systems, and sustainable energy—backing successes like Rocket Lab, Pivotal, and Atom Computing while co-investing with In-Q-Tel to bridge innovation with government needs. A Yale University physics graduate and inventor with over 50 patents in areas like virtualization, fraud detection, and augmented reality, Ocko began his career in 1983 as founder and VP of R&D at Da Vinci Systems, a pioneering email software company that reached over a million users before its acquisition, later making early bets on unicorns such as Zoom, Uber, Facebook, Fortinet, D-Wave Systems, and AngelList, many of which achieved massive IPOs or strategic exits to giants like Cisco, Google, and Amazon. A longtime advocate for American technological leadership, he advises organizations like Business Executives for National Security (BENS), the Defense Intelligence Memorial Foundation, federal agencies, and Congressional committees on policy and emerging tech, drawing on decades of entrepreneurial and investing experience to foster capabilities for future missions, all while still coding and building robots with his children in his spare time.
Andrew Duggleby
Co-Founder & CTO, Venus Aerospace, Venus Aerospace
Dr. Andrew Duggleby is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Venus Aerospace, a Houston-based startup pioneering reusable hypersonic flight technologies to enable one-hour global travel—allowing passengers to fly from anywhere on Earth and return home for dinner—through groundbreaking innovations like the VDR2 rotating detonation ramjet engine, which has achieved historic U.S. flight tests, supersonic demonstrations, and partnerships with DARPA and NASA for high-efficiency propulsion at Mach 6+. A rocket scientist with a PhD in mechanical engineering, Duggleby previously led launch operations at Virgin Orbit (hotfiring the first dual-mode 3D-printed rocket engine with NASA), contributed to early programs at Virgin Galactic, taught mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, conducted turbomachinery research at Virginia Tech, and serves as a Lieutenant Commander Engineering Duty Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve supporting the Defense Innovation Unit's space portfolio. Inspired by long-distance frustrations while stationed in Japan with his wife and CEO Sassie Duggleby—whom he co-founded Venus with in 2020 amid the pandemic—he has scaled the company to over 100 employees, raised tens of millions from investors like Prime Movers Lab and Airbus Ventures, and relentlessly advances sustainable, runway-takeoff hypersonic platforms for commercial, defense, and space applications to shrink the world dramatically.
Robert Rose
CEO and Founder, Reliable Robotics
Robert Rose is the co-founder and CEO of Reliable Robotics, a Mountain View, California-based leader in autonomous aviation systems pioneering certified automation for existing aircraft—like the Cessna 208 Caravan—to enable safer, remotely piloted, and eventually uncrewed operations that expand cargo and passenger access, enhance national security through contested logistics, and integrate seamlessly into the National Airspace System. With over two decades in aerospace, self-driving vehicles, and robotics, Rose previously served as Director of Flight Software at SpaceX, leading onboard systems for the first 10 Falcon 9 launches, Dragon spacecraft missions to the ISS, and Grasshopper tests; contributed to Tesla's early Autopilot and instrument panel innovations; and headed advanced perception projects for large vehicles at Google X. A holder of dual B.S. degrees in Computer Science and Computer Engineering plus an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Oregon State University—with roots in game engine programming at Sony PlayStation—Rose has testified before Congress on U.S. aviation leadership, collaborated with the U.S. Air Force and NASA on autonomy architectures, and driven milestones like the first uncrewed Caravan flights and FAA certification progress for detect-and-avoid technologies to revolutionize scalable, life-saving air mobility.
Jan Liphardt
CEO OpenMind AGI and Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Stanford University, OpenMind AGI
Jan Liphardt is a German-American biophysicist, Stanford Associate Professor of Bioengineering, and founder/CEO of OpenMind, a San Francisco-based startup pioneering OM1—an open-source, AI-native, hardware-agnostic operating system for intelligent robots—and FABRIC, a decentralized blockchain protocol enabling secure, verifiable coordination and shared intelligence among machines across vendors to foster transparent, trustworthy human-robot societies in sensitive domains like healthcare, elder care, education, and defense. With roots in single-molecule biophysics—holding a BA from Reed College, PhD from Cambridge University, postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley, faculty stints at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab—Liphardt has authored influential papers on mechanobiology, super-resolution imaging, and genomic patterns while teaching courses on engineering living matter, machine learning, and blockchain applications. In 2024-2025, he scaled OpenMind from academic insights into a $20M-funded venture backed by Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and others, co-authoring ERC-7777 for immutable robot governance, publishing arXiv preprints on LLM-driven robot behaviors, and keynoting at TOKEN2049 and ETHDenver to advocate crypto-economic incentives for autonomous systems amid the robotics explosion.
Bob Boyd
founder and CEO, ATSquared Aerospace
Bob Boyd is the founder and CEO of ATSquared Aerospace, a company focused on developing cargo freight airships to advance innovative air transportation solutions. With expertise in aerospace technology, he leads efforts to create sustainable and efficient alternatives for cargo delivery. Boyd has shared his insights at events such as the Dreams of Steel Closing Party.
