Join us on Tuesday, June 9 at The Boston Globe’s 2026 Tech Innovation Summit, where we will bring together the region’s top tech leaders focused on AI, Climate Tech, Health Tech, Fintech, and more for a day of networking and insightful discussions around Boston’s impact on technology around the world.
The summit’s programming will consist of dynamic discussions, expert-led panels, pitch contests and more that dive into the technological advancements being made right here in Boston. Attendees will engage with journalists shaping the narrative and the experts driving change in their respective industries.
Space is limited, register today!
The 2026 Tech Innovation Summit will take place at The State Room on the 33rd floor of 60 State St in Boston.
Join us virtually, for free! The link to join the livestream will be emailed to you the morning of the summit. Our sessions will also be posted to our Globe Events YouTube after the summit's conclusion.
We are committed to making Globe Events accessible. Special rates are available for government, academia, non-profit, startups, students, advocates, and more. If you need financial support to attend the 2026 Tech Innovation Summit, please contact events@globe.com.
By providing us with your email address as part of your registration to any Boston Globe or Boston.com event, you will also be added to our select newsletter lists. You may opt out of these lists at any time by clicking the unsubscribe links provided in the newsletters. View our privacy policy. Your participation in any event is subject to our Terms of Service.
What is the Startup World Cup?
The Startup World Cup is a series of global startup conferences and pitch competitions powered by Pegasus Tech Ventures, featuring 100+ regional events across 60+ countries. These events culminate in our 2025 Grand Finale hosted in Silicon Valley (USA), where winning startups from each regional event will compete for a $1M prize on October 17th, 2025. The Tech Innovation Summit will host the East Coast Regional Pitch Competition as part of this global series.
What is Pegasus Ventures?
Pegasus Tech Ventures is a $2B global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley (USA) that invests in emerging technology companies worldwide and supports their expansion in North America, Asia, and Europe.
Are there any eligibility requirements or restrictions?
The competition is open to all industries (except non-profits).
Startups must have a legal business entity (i.e., be incorporated).
There are no age restrictions
How are the top 10 finalists selected?
Finalists are chosen based on an assessment of their application. Submissions are evaluated similarly to how a venture capital firm would assess investment opportunities.
What will the pitch contest look like on June 10?
The live pitch contest will take place at the 2025 Tech Innovation Summit at 3:00 PM on the main stage. Each of the 10 finalists will have 3–4 minutes to present their pitch to a panel of judges and the full in-person Summit audience of around 200 in-person attendees and 700+ virtual attendees. The winner will be announced at the event once all pitches have been viewed and evaluated by the judges.
As AI becomes more embedded in real-world products and services, the center of gravity needs to shift from the cloud to the edge. From smartphones and laptops to vehicles and drones, edge devices are increasingly where AI needs to run—driven by demands for privacy, speed, reliability, and cost-efficiency.
But deploying AI on the edge isn’t just a technical challenge—it’s a paradigm shift. Shipping a model is only the beginning. Maintaining, updating, and optimizing AI systems across distributed hardware environments requires new thinking, new architectures, and new strategies.
This panel brings together leaders on the frontlines of edge AI to explore the why, how, and what’s next. They’ll discuss the biggest pain points enterprises face today, the tradeoffs between task-specific and general-purpose small language models, and what it will take to move from experimentation to scalable, ROI-positive deployment.
Governor Maura Healey talks with Joshua Miller, a Boston Globe editor, about the Trump Administration’s impact on innovation and the ways that Massachusetts is responding. In a spirited Q&A, they’ll discuss the news of the day and whether smart people can still be enticed to found the next great company in Massachusetts.
Ian Bowles is Managing Director of WindSail Capital, a private investment firm that has committed over $300 million to more than 40 companies focused on climate solutions. Ian was Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs where he worked with the Legislature to pass and implement six landmark laws that put MA at the forefront of climate and clean energy. He was the first Chairman of the MA Clean Energy Center. Ian also served on the senior staff of the National Security Council. A native of Woods Hole, Ian graduated from Harvard College and holds a Masters degree from Oxford University.
Jon Chesto covers the leaders who shape Boston’s business community. He has been reporting on business and politics in New England for the past two decades. Before joining the Globe, he was managing editor at the Boston Business Journal. Prior to that role, he was the business editor at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy. His weekly Ledger column, “Mass. Market,” won several national awards with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. A graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, he has also worked as a business reporter at the Boston Herald and as a political reporter with Ottaway Newspapers.
Dana Gerber is the Business Producer for the Boston Globe, where she helps oversee the section's digital presence and covers a range of topics — from developments in the local media landscape, to Gen Z workplace attitudes, to the financial toll of Long COVID, to the joys of Allston Christmas. As the section producer, she refines Business content for optimal digital reach, promotes it on all social platforms, and works with reporters and editors to devise innovative presentation strategies
Aaron Pressman is a business reporter covering technology, startups, A.I., and the electric vehicle transition. In a multi-decade career, he has covered the Internet bubble, the housing bubble, the crypto bubble, and the artificial intelligence...boom. Before joining the Globe in 2021, his work appeared in Fortune, BusinessWeek, Wired, and The Industry Standard, and at Yahoo Finance, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
Pressman won a "Best in Business" award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, or SABEW, for coverage of AT&T's worker retraining effort and a silver medal from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for best business blog. Time Magazine named him one of the "140 most interesting people on Twitter."
Andy Rosen is senior assistant business editor, helping to guide the Globe's coverage of economic and financial issues. Andy grew up in Haverhill, Mass. and lives in Boston.
Now in his second stint at the Globe, Andy has been a key part of both the Globe’s business and breaking news teams. He has covered everything from the Boston Marathon’s Wellesley “scream tunnel” to the maritime mystery of Nathan Carman. Andy also was part of the team that revealed what happened during the early 2020 COVID outbreak at Biogen's Boston conference.
He has more than 15 years of newsroom experience, including as crime and courts editor at The Baltimore Sun. In that role, Andy oversaw coverage of stories including the takedown of the dark web marketplace Silk Road and the gang takeover of the Baltimore City Detention Center. Andy has also been a personal finance expert and writer at NerdWallet, breaking down complex investing concepts for consumers — including on NerdWallet’s popular YouTube channel and its Smart Money podcast.
Dr. Grace Wang, has served as Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s 17th president since April 2023. She leads the university with a focus on transformative STEM education, immersive student experience centering on well-being and belonging, and high-impact research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Wang serves with the Government-University-Industry-Philanthropy Research Roundtable at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; New York Academy of Sciences; and FIRST. A 2024 fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Dr. Wang earned her PhD from Northwestern University and held research, academic, and leadership roles at IBM, NSF, SUNY, and The Ohio State University.
With federal climate policy unraveling and the Mass Leads Act gaining momentum at the state level, Massachusetts finds itself navigating two very different realities at once. This panel examines what the state can realistically achieve on its own, and what's at stake for the climate tech companies, investors, and communities caught in the middle.
Some of the most compelling AI stories aren't coming from Silicon Valley. They're coming from logistics companies, healthcare operators, law firms, and retailers who never built a thing. This panel brings together leaders from across industries to explore what it really looks like to deploy AI as a business strategy, not a tech project.
Fetch's Defeat the Odds Pitch Competition brings college entrepreneurs from across the country to Boston to pitch their ideas live to a panel of industry leaders – competing for up to $30,000 in prizes, one-on-one mentorship, and access to Fetch's team and resources. Rooted in Fetch CEO Wes Schroll's own origin story, Defeat the Odds carries that same spirit forward. Catch the live finals on June 9 and come ready to be inspired.
Alicia Barton is the Chief Executive Officer of Vineyard Offshore, a leading offshore wind developer with a portfolio of more than 6 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind projects in North America. Projects include Vineyard Wind, the first commercial-scale offshore wind project to complete construction in the United States, and Excelsior Wind in New York. With over 15 years' experience in leadership roles in both the public and private sectors, Alicia has dedicated her career to solving the world’s most significant energy challenges through bold, large-scale innovation.
Nicole Collins is the Founder of Heartwood & Co, building human-centered AI for women in transition. A 15-year People & Culture leader turned grief educator — after personal losses showed her how poorly we handle hard conversations — she got into AI the way a lot of non-technical founders do: she had a real problem to solve. Supporting people through loss is high-stakes work, so she started training Claude on her coaching approach to rehearse difficult moments and vibe-coding personal dashboards for clients in the fog of grief. She's now developing an AI tool that protects newly widowed women from predatory financial advice.
Zaid Ashai is the CEO of Nexamp, where he has guided the company’s transformation into one of the most trusted and innovative leaders in the distributed generation and clean energy space. Under Zaid’s leadership, Nexamp has scaled significantly, empowering communities across the United States to access affordable renewable energy while championing a sustainable future. Zaid’s leadership reflects his unwavering belief that clean energy should be accessible to everyone and that innovative, community-focused solutions can reshape the future of energy.
Julie Chen became chancellor of UMass Lowell in 2022, leading efforts to increase enrollment and student success, strengthen research excellence and expand community partnerships. Under her leadership, UMass Lowell earned Research 1 designation and was named the No. 1 public university in Massachusetts by The Wall Street Journal in its 2026 rankings. Chen also oversaw the launch of the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor, a public-private initiative designed to drive economic growth and create new opportunities for students and faculty. Previously, she spent more than two decades at UMass Lowell as a faculty member and chief research officer. Chen earned three degrees from MIT.
Boston may be the region’s best-known innovation hub, but the next wave of growth will depend on strong ecosystems beyond the city core. Lowell is demonstrating how that happens: by linking research, commercialization, industry partnership, talent development and place-based investment in ways that support real scale. This panel would explore what gateway cities can contribute to Massachusetts' tech future and how collaboration across academia, industry and civic partners can unlock new opportunity.
A creative strategist and organizational leader, Aisha Francis, Ph.D., became president in 2020, becoming the first female president and CEO in the Institutes 100+-year history. A hallmark of Dr. Francis’ tenure was the construction of the new campus, which opened in January 2026. The 68,000-square-foot LEED-certified facility serves as an anchor institution in a vibrant neighborhood that 20 percent of its students call home. Boston Mayor, Michele Wu, described the new campus as “a major investment not only for Franklin Cummings Tech’s academic mission, but also for Nubian Square and the city.” Her leadership and scholarship have been recognized by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Aspen Institute. Dr. Francis is originally from Nashville, Tennessee. She completed her undergraduate education at Fisk University, then earned masters and doctoral degrees in English Literature from Vanderbilt University. She resides in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston with her husband and children.
Frank Ricciardi is chief executive officer of Weston & Sampson, a Massachusetts-based, 100% employee-owned firm specializing in infrastructure design and construction, environmental services, and climate resiliency and sustainability planning. During his tenure, Ricciardi has held a range of leadership and management roles and now leads the firm’s engineering, construction, maintenance, repair and services divisions. A registered professional engineer in numerous states and a Massachusetts licensed site professional, he has more than 30 years of experience in project management, environmental engineering, remediation system design and hazardous waste site assessment. Weston & Sampson has partnered with clients for more than 125 years.
Brandi C. Vann is vice president and chief strategy officer at Draper, where she leads annual strategy and business planning, business intelligence, legislative engagement and the company’s New Business Council. She joined Draper in 2025 after serving in senior leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Defense, including assistant secretary of defense for nuclear deterrence and chemical and biological defense policy and programs. Her work supported nuclear deterrence modernization, defense against weapons of mass destruction and compliance with international treaties. A recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, Vann holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of South Carolina.
Amrutha Killada is an AI adoption strategist who helps traditional companies and enterprises turn artificial intelligence into tangible business outcomes. She has led applied AI initiatives across education, pharma, healthcare, and e‑commerce with a focus on operational efficiency and revenue impact. Amrutha not only defines AI strategy but works alongside business leaders to implement it. She is an MIT alumna and former Associate Director at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.
Hiawatha Bray is a technology writer for the Business section. A native of Chicago and a graduate of Knox College and Wheaton College, he formerly worked on the staff of the Lexington, Ky. Herald-Leader and the Detroit Free Press, where he wrote about a variety of topics, including banking, nuclear energy and the Kentucky bourbon industry.
Bray joined the staff of the Globe in 1995, and has covered the rise of the Internet and social media from their earliest beginnings. He famously predicted that Apple’s iMac computer would be a flop (wrong) and that the iPhone would transform the world (right). He has contributed to a number of publications, including Wired, Fast Company and Black Enterprise. He received an Overseas Press Club award for his series on the Internet in Africa, and has reported on technology issues from Taiwan and the Philippines. Bray has frequently appeared on local television and radio programs, most recently on the WBUR news show “Radio Boston.”
Bray has authored two books: “You Are Here,” a history of modern navigation technologies including inertial navigation, GPS and satellite imaging systems; and a conspiracy-thriller novel, “Power In the Blood.”
Greg Huang is the Boston Globe's business editor. Prior to joining the Globe, he was an editor and reporter at Xconomy, New Scientist, and MIT's Technology Review. His writing has appeared in Wired, Nature, and other publications. He graduated from MIT with a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science.