MSVL Bridge Sunset Concert Series (PVDfest Edition)

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The MSVL Bridge Sunset Concert Series continues with an event during Rhode Island Startup Week. Performers include AraabMUZIK, Blend Compadres, Mike Rollins and DJ LadyRuck. The event is free and open to the public. The bridge is located in the park across the street from the CIC Building at 225 Dyer St.

yconic AI Summit (First Day)

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In today’s enterprise AI race, falling behind is poor practice, but, not progressing at all is malpractice. Most AI conferences are all talk. This one runs on demonstrations from real enterprises and sandbox workshops where you build with the systems yourself, not slides about them. Bring a problem that costs you money. Leave with something running.

Arnell Milhouse

How To Find What To Solve

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Information is broken, ongoing and deepening. We have tools, some well known and some emerging. We'll run through a model of bulwarks that happen along with information literacy. Then we'll walk through an overview for a model for one of the hardest things to wrap our heads around: expanding context.

Ang Madsen

Closing the Founder Success Gap: 5 Habits That Separate Founders Who Can Excel Quickly

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Most founders aren't struggling because they lack talent — they're struggling because no one taught them ways to handle the weight of constant high-stakes decisions. This session walks through five habits that separate founders who scale quickly from those who may stall or burn out, drawn from real coaching work with founders in make-or-break moments. Practical, story-driven, and built for founders who want to move faster with less stress, not more work.

Paul Hefner

How to Successfully Find a Co-Founder

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Starting a business requires far more than one person’s expertise. Successful founders recognize that turning an idea into a thriving enterprise often depends on partnering with someone whose strengths complement their own. The right co-founder can bring sharper strategy, stronger execution, and greater focus to the business journey. In this interactive workshop, two entrepreneurs will share why they made the strategic decision to bring on co-founders and how those partnerships contributed to their success. Participants will learn the criteria they used to select the right partner, the expectations they established from Day One, and the practical steps they took to build cohesive, productive, and high-performing working relationships.

Beth Carter

Bahar Bilgen

Ozge Whiting

Peg Fradette

Meaghan Krupa

John MacKrell

Immigration Options for Startups

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This session provides a practical map of U.S. immigration pathways available to startups in 2026. The landscape has shifted materially in the past year, especially for H-1B, and startups need to choose a pathway based on their profile, the company's stage, and current policy conditions. The goal is not to make anyone an immigration expert in an hour, but to help startup founders (1) Understand different visa categories (2) identify which immigration pathways are realistic for their situation, (3) know what to prepare before starting an immigration case.

Zach Lyons

Building an AI-Forward Sales Process (That Actually Works)

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AI is rebuilding how the best teams sell — but bolted onto a messy process, it just automates the chaos. This session covers what an AI-forward sales process actually looks like: where AI genuinely improves the sales motion, what has to be in place first, and the order of operations for building a sales system that scales. Led by Jeffrey D'Entremont, founder of Peak Partners (HubSpot Platinum Solutions Partner, 100+ CRM implementations). Built for founders and small revenue teams.

Jeffrey D'Entremont

AI Is Coming for Your Moat: What Investors and Founders Need to Know About Defensible Enterprise Value

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AI is making it easier to build, copy, search, test, and challenge. For startups and investors, that changes the meaning of defensibility. This session will explore how companies can build durable enterprise value through technology ownership, software and data rights, trade secrets, patents, trademarks, contracts, commercialization strategy, and exit readiness.

Dan Holmander

Should I Apply for a Patent? Maybe Not.

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Working with inventors over the last 16 years, we have learned that there are times we must advise an entrepreneur not to pursue patent protection. This can be due to many factors: like when a search reveals contradicting prior art; when the invention, while innovative, will not pass the examination process without undue expense and resulting in a weak patent; or when a method patent is inappropriate. We will discuss these pitfalls and give real stories of successes and failures, focusing on the Rhode Island startups we have worked with. We will outline the three tests that the US Patent Office applies to an invention, how to overcome those tests, and other avenues for intellectual-property protection, including trade secrets, trademarks, "use in commerce," and copyright. Scott Keeley is a registered patent agent who has been working with Rhode Island inventors since 2009.

Scott Keeley

Yconic Hackathon

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Arnell Milhouse

Embracing the Pirate Side - How to Discover Your Authentic Brand

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This is not your typical “Five Steps to a Better Brand” presentation. This is the story of how, seven years ago, I embraced my pirate side and discovered an authentic brand for my business. It’s well known that pirates are true entrepreneurs (usually starting from nothing) and excel at branding. So let’s spend some time together, and I’ll share how I guide clients on a journey to discover their own authentic brand treasure.

Justin Kerr

yconic AI Summit (Second day)

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In today’s enterprise AI race, falling behind is poor practice, but, not progressing at all is malpractice. Most AI conferences are all talk. This one runs on demonstrations from real enterprises and sandbox workshops where you build with the systems yourself, not slides about them. Bring a problem that costs you money. Leave with something running.

Arnell Milhouse

AI Powered Marketing for Startups

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Whether you're launching a startup or growing a small business, AI can become a valuable marketing partner. This one-hour, hands-on workshop teaches entrepreneurs how to leverage generative AI tools for market research, customer insights, competitive analysis, market sizing, persona creation, and content development. Designed for beginners, the session focuses on practical applications that support smarter marketing decisions and faster execution.

Shelly Nichols

How to Mindfully Work With a Consultant

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Mindfully Hiring a Consultant is a 90-minute, single-session workshop for founders and organizational leaders who are bringing in outside expertise for the first time, or trying to make those relationships work better than they have in the past. Consultants can be a powerful investment, but most engagements go sideways, not because of the consultant but because the organization wasn't clear on what it actually needed before signing anything. This workshop walks participants through how to identify real needs versus perceived ones, write a statement of work that protects both parties, set expectations from day one, and ensure the deliverables are actually used once the engagement ends.

Ellie Brown

Marketing Clarity for Founders: What to Do, Track, and Ignore

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Marketing shouldn’t feel like guesswork, but for most founders, it does. I've designed a practical session to help early-stage founders understand what marketing is actually responsible for, which metrics matter most early on, and how to build a simple operating model they can implement immediately. Here's what I cover: - Why marketing feels confusing - What marketing is responsible for - Key metrics that matter early - How GTM has changed - A simple marketing operating model founders can steal Who this is for: Startup founders, CEOs, early-stage operators, and anyone responsible for growth who wants clarity and traction without the fluff!

Marlena Sarunac

Nucleate's Activator: Inside the Accelerator Program

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This will be a panel discussion featuring a moderator from Nucleate leadership, 2-3 panelists from the Rhode Island teams that participated in Boston's Activator program this past 2025-2026 year, as well as a student volunteer from Nucleate RI's leadership who helped to organize the Activator program that year. The discussion will first introduce the goals, scope and success of Nucleate as a student-run, nationwide nonprofit, led by the Nucleate leadership present. Then, the panelists will be invited to share their businesses and how they benefitted from participating in the Activator, highlighting skills, experiences, and networks that they wouldn't have been able to gain without participation. The event will end with a Q&A and information about how future teams can apply to participate.

Brand Visibility: building a dynamic content calendar that helps you stand out in AI-driven search and discovery

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Your next customers, partners, investors, or hires are using LLMs to discover and select the businesses they support. Join Matter Communications to explore practical ways to build a sustainable visibility strategy that helps your company get found by the right audiences at the right time.

Vanessa Taylor

Xavier Gath

Elena Gosalvez

Ethan Lyons

From Idea to App: AI-Assisted Development for Non-Technical Entrepreneurs

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Turn your app idea into a working prototype, no coding background required. In this 90-minute hands-on workshop, non-technical founders will discover how AI-assisted development (often called "vibe coding") is reshaping what's possible for solo entrepreneurs and small teams. You'll learn what vibe coding is and where it shines (MVPs, prototypes, internal tools, and the emerging "software for one" concept), how to choose between leading platforms like Lovable for web apps and FlutterFlow for mobile, and how Supabase can power your backend with databases, authentication, and file storage. The centerpiece is a live build demo where we take a simple app idea from prompt to deployed URL in real time, covering effective prompt-writing, the iterative refine-and-rebuild process, and basic troubleshooting when things go sideways. You'll leave with a confidence to start prototyping your own ideas the moment you walk out the door.

Joe Mazzone

Attract Your Ideal Clients (How to build a clear brand that sets you apart)

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Many small and mid-sized business owners are doing many marketing tasks, posting, promoting, networking, but still not attracting consistent clients. The problem is NOT effort. It’s that their brand and messaging aren’t clear enough for people to know, like, trust, and choose them. If this is you, you’re not alone. For many business owners, there is a common misconception that a brand is just logos and visuals. In reality, clarity in your purpose, audience, and messaging is what drives ideal clients through your door and directly impacts your bottom line. When those pieces are unclear, marketing feels inconsistent, and leads feel hit-or-miss. In this talk, you’ll walk through what makes a brand easy to understand and trust, and how small shifts in clarity can make a big difference in the way your message is received. As the founder of Dream in Color Marketing and a marketing professor, Kristyn brings real-world experience to help businesses with clear and practical marketing steps.

Kristyn Neal

URI Innovations Showcase

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THIS EVENT REQUIRES A SEPARATE REGISTRATION: CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

This event will bring together academia with investors and industry partners to showcase startups, founders, researchers and professors at URI who have developed innovative and inspiring work. This will be a great opportunity to connect with the entrepreneurial ecosystem and provide you with a glimpse of current startups developing innovative products, as well as emerging projects that are in their early stages. Our goal is to bring the ecosystem together, light a spark and see what we can inspire when you put entrepreneurial talent and great partners in the room together.

Yconic Hackathon

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Arnell Milhouse

Heart of Rhode Island Networking and Referral Group (Paid Event)

THIS IS A PAID EVENT AND LIMITED TO THE FIRST 150 REGISTRATIONS. Please register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-heart-of-rhode-island-networking-referral-group-tickets-1990234875087 The Heart of Rhode Island was founded in March 2022… and it is STILL going strong! With 150+ attendees each month and a sell-out streak since September 2023, this gathering has become Rhode Island’s go-to space for authentic connection, community, and collaboration. Led by me and our incredible Heart of RI Committee: Cathy Andreozzi, Dawn Apajee, Mark Berger, Aaron Bishop, Michael Cabral, Elizabeth Hamilton, Xander Honor, Lisa Jones, Sarah McCooey, Stephanie McNamara, John Pagliarini, Stacey Silva, and Bridget VanDemark! This is where real relationships begin. Where ideas come to life. And where Rhode Island’s changemakers unite.

Headshots and Handshakes with BBB

Headshots & Handshakes with BBB is a free community event designed to help professionals elevate their personal brand while making meaningful business connections. Attendees can enjoy professional headshots, casual networking, and access to local entrepreneurial resources—all in one welcoming space. It’s our way of supporting entrepreneurs, consumers, and small business owners as they grow their presence and build trusted relationships.

Health & Life Sciences Day Event Welcome

Kick off the second annual Health & Life Sciences Day at Rhode Island Startup Week with an overview of Rhode Island's growing life sciences ecosystem. Hear opening remarks highlighting the day's themes of innovation, entrepreneurship, collaboration, and commercialization, and discover how the state is accelerating breakthroughs that improve health and drive economic growth.

Glenn Robertelli

Health & Life Sciences Day Keynote: Why Rhode Island? Building the Next Life Sciences Hub

Join Bob Cormier, CEO & President of the Rhode Island Life Science Hub, as he shares his vision for positioning Rhode Island as a premier destination for life sciences innovation. Learn how the state's talent, research institutions, manufacturing heritage, and collaborative ecosystem can accelerate discovery, commercialization, and economic growth while shaping the future of healthcare.

Bob Cormier

Health & Life Sciences Day Fireside Chat: From Discovery to Delivery—Connecting Research to Patient Care

Breakthrough discoveries only change lives when they reach patients. Hear leaders from academia and healthcare discuss how strategic partnerships are accelerating translational research, moving innovations from the lab to the clinic, and strengthening the connection between scientific discovery, clinical care, and commercialization.

Demystifying SBIR/STTR: Non-Dilutive Funding for Your Startup

This session will walk attendees through the fundamentals of the SBIR/STTR program, including which federal agencies participate, how to identify the right funding opportunities for your technology, the difference between Phase I, II, and III awards, and what makes a competitive proposal.

Chad Lewis

Health & Life Sciences Day Networking Break

Connect with founders, researchers, investors, clinicians, students, and ecosystem partners. Build new relationships, exchange ideas, and explore opportunities for collaboration across Rhode Island's growing health and life sciences community.

Health & Life Sciences Day Cluster Topic - Women's Health: Innovating for Better Outcomes

Building a successful women's health company means more than great science — it means navigating clinical partnerships the right way. This panel offers a candid discussion on what it actually takes to build effective, lasting clinical collaborations in women's health. Panelists will share hard-won lessons on what works — and the common missteps that can derail even the most promising partnerships — offering practical, actionable guidance for founders and researchers looking to get women's health partnerships right from day one.

Health & Life Sciences Day Cluster Topic - Neuroscience: Unlocking the Next Frontier of Brain Health

Discover how advances in neuroscience are transforming our understanding of the brain. This session highlights emerging research, novel technologies, and entrepreneurial innovation that are shaping the future of neurological care, cognitive health, and brain science.

A Timeline of VC History

Learn how New England helped shape the venture capital industry as we know it today. We’ll explore its local origins and examine how its influence continues to impact the world.

Melissa Hernandez

Health & Life Sciences Day Cluster Topic - RNA Revolution: Transforming Research and Therapeutics

RNA technologies are redefining medicine and enabling breakthroughs in diagnostics, therapeutics, and precision healthcare. Explore the latest advances in RNA research and learn how scientists and entrepreneurs are translating these discoveries into next-generation medical innovations.

Calamari Tank

What's for Lunch? Squid! Join us as 3 entrepreneurs pitch to earn their spot as the top Squid! This is RI's version of SharkTank and your vote counts in deciding the winner. Watch the event live or watch from your computer to see some RI entrepreneurs make their pitch to be the Top Squid.

Pat Sabatino

Health & Life Sciences Day Cluster Topic - Immunology & Infectious Disease: Partnerships That Advance Public Health

Explore how collaboration among academic institutions, healthcare systems, government agencies, and industry is advancing immunology and infectious disease research. Learn how these partnerships are strengthening public health, accelerating innovation, and preparing for future healthcare challenges.

Health & Life Sciences Day Lunch, Networking & Tours of Ocean State Labs

Enjoy lunch while connecting with fellow attendees, speakers, and ecosystem partners. Continue conversations, explore new collaborations, and expand your network within Rhode Island's growing health and life sciences community. Attendees are also invited to take optional guided tours of the new Ocean State Labs, Powered by Portal Innovations, Rhode Island's newest hub for life sciences innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Idea to Reality - Product Life Cycle & GTM

Courtney Greenwood

Christopher Mango Laine

David Banks

Greg Antonelli

HR Essentials for Founders

We'll discuss the HR essentials any business owner and founder needs to be aware of before hiring to avoid costly mistakes down the road. We'll review common pitfalls for small organizations, compliance risks, and HR processes that should be built into starting a company. Incorporating strategic HR considerations into your business plan and mission will drive recruitment, retention, culture, leadership, and business growth.

Health & Life Sciences Day - From Lab to Capital: Building an Investable Life Sciences Startup

Before you go out and raise, you need to understand the market you're raising into. John Flavin, Founder and CEO of Portal Innovations, has raised over $400M for life science ventures and is a regular voice on Bloomberg and CNBC on where biotech investment is headed. He'll break down the current state of national life science fundraising, from shifting NIH funding to what investors are actually looking for right now, and what it means for founders trying to raise capital today.

John Flavin

Health & Life Sciences Day - Ecosystem Elevator Pitches: Meet Rhode Island's Innovation Resources

Discover the organizations helping entrepreneurs succeed across every stage of company growth. Through a series of rapid-fire presentations, meet the funding, incubation, commercialization, and business resources available to support Rhode Island's life sciences innovators.

Intellectual Property Basics for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs

An in-person event to teach the basics of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets and their value to businesses.

Liz Jackson

Health & Life Sciences Day Networking Break

Take a break to reconnect with speakers, founders, researchers, investors, and fellow attendees. Continue conversations, strengthen relationships, and build new connections before the afternoon sessions.

Made in the USA! How to build a product from scratch at home.

Join Zmanti for an inside look at what it truly takes to bring a domestically manufactured physical product from initial concept to customer doorstep. In this interactive one-hour session, we’ll lift the curtain on our supply chain, sharing how we design and manufacture our Zmanti panties right here in the United States and assemble our complete product kits domestically. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur looking to navigate American manufacturing, curious about physical product development, or passionate about supporting local supply chains, you'll gain actionable insights, real-world lessons, and practical advice on building a brand from the ground up at home.

Elena Holodny

Kendra Forsythe

Health & Life Sciences Day - Entrepreneurs Fireside Chat: Building a Life Sciences Company from the Ground Up

Hear firsthand from founders who have transformed innovative ideas into successful life sciences companies. This candid conversation explores entrepreneurship, commercialization, fundraising, leadership, and the lessons learned while navigating the journey from academic research to market impact.

Health & Life Sciences Day - From Idea to Impact: Navigating the Product Development Journey

Bringing healthcare innovations to market requires different strategies depending on the technology. Explore product development pathways across medical devices, diagnostics, digital health, biotechnology, and therapeutics, and gain practical insights into commercialization, regulatory strategy, and market readiness.

"Brown Invents" Startup Challenge

Discover the next wave of breakthrough commercialization at the “Brown Invents” Startup Challenge! Highlighting the university’s latest technology-based spinouts, this event showcases commercial-ready ventures tackling complex industry challenges. The event features an interactive pitch session moderated by Thorne Sparkman (Slater Technology Fund/Right Hill Ventures) and judged by a distinguished panel of leading VCs and Industry Experts. Join local ecosystem leaders, investors, and innovators to discover the deep-tech breakthroughs shaping tomorrow's markets.

VR Beyond Gaming

VR Beyond Gaming is an evening where guests eat, drink, and socialize while exploring what virtual reality can do beyond entertainment. Step into immersive experiences that showcase VR as a tool for training, skill learning, career exploration, and more all in a relaxed, social setting. Whether you're curious about the technology or want to see how it's being used to teach and train in the real world, it's a hands on look at the future of VR in a fun, come as you are atmosphere.

Toye Onikoyi

Ocean Tech Day

Join us for a full day of Ocean Tech and Dual Use sessions. Detailed agenda coming soon!

Brown B-Lab Expo

THIS EVENT REQUIRES A SEPARATE REGISTRATION AT https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1994025313390?aff=oddtdtcreator The Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship’s B-Lab is excited to present its annual B-Lab Expo as part of RI Startup Week, hosted by RIHub. This intensive 8-week accelerator program empowers student entrepreneurs to develop high-impact ventures, and the B-Lab Expo is the culmination of their hard work. Join us for an immersive experience where you can engage with these ventures, explore their innovative products, and witness how their ideas have evolved over the summer.

Newport Investor Summit

THIS IS A PAID EVENT - Visit www.newportinvestorsummit.com to register Welcome to beautiful Newport, where capital meets innovation. We gather with a clear mission: to connect great investors with bold entrepreneurs, those with real, ready-to-go ideas that can spark meaningful change. With guests joining us from around the world, from Paris to Puerto Rico, this event celebrates the powerful tradition of American innovation, built on the fusion of creativity and capital. • 36 startup pitches — each with 5 minutes to shine • Three great tracks — Health & Life Sciences, Ocean Tech and • Dual Use and the Showcase Track • A room full of investors ready to discover the next big idea • Opportunities to connect, collaborate, and build the future