NY Tech Week 2026
I got your short list of creative tech events this year, fam. Happy tech week!
Is ai over yet?
According to the 1,600 events on the cal this year (up from just over 1,000 last year), NOPE. Tech week by a16z is the biggest decentralized tech conference of the year. Anyone can submit an event. I’m hosting 3 of them back to back, centered around creativity and grounding, because we sorely need it.
Check it out for yourself so you don’t miss something!
These days I’m thinking a lot about this music video. It’s a refreshingly human piece of art from a bygone era… 2010 😱 It’s existential, but more relevant than ever. Watch it on full screen if you want to feel something.
Ah, 2010. A time of great romcoms. Leo was peaking. Biebs had the side swoop. Single Ladies and skinny jeans owned the clurbs. I was still in high school, working at Urban Outfitters and slacking off in track practice. Probably rehearsing my Single Ladies choreo instead.
Twas a time of massive shift in tech too. iPhone 4 just dropped, with the front facing camera and Facetime, the dawn of the modern selfie & creator marketing era. Facebook was still cool. We accumulated ‘friends’, pokes, updated statuses to ‘it’s complicatedddd’, and photo dumps with corny song lyric titles. Flickr and Tumblr were still in their prime, then BAM. Instagram dropped with a simple photo sharing function and the bad filters that we loved so much. And that was the beginning of the end of all the other social platforms missing a vowel.
One Bitcoin cost a few cents in 2010. Too bad I was busy with Beyonce choreo. I don’t want to talk about it.
The internet just felt lighter. People were more present, and there was a lot less noise.
I yearn to go back to 2010. Someone vibe code a 2010 simulator immediately.
Anyway let’s snap back. It’s NY Tech Weeeeek! Time for a global pulse check on the state of tech and tech enabled life. If you are in need of grounding and community, put these in your cal immediately:
FRIDAY JUNE 5: Futures fashion tech happy hour @ sexy cocktail bar | East Village
SATURDAY JUNE 6: the unplug cacao ceremony & connection | East Village
SUNDAY JUNE 7: recovery walk on the high line.
On to the relatively short list of ~75 fun things to go to this week.
As always, this list is focused on anything fashion tech, design tech, consumer product/CPG, retail, martech, adtech and more.
BUT FIRST, a pep talk
Whatever you do for work or life, you are not except from tech (unless you literally live off the grid, and if you are reading this, u do NOT!).
Go to places where you feel like you don’t belong, and especially go there. We tend to silo ourselves and our careers, and NYC is simply not the place to make yourself small. Go be in rooms where people are smarter than you. Take a moment to listen. Growth comes from discomfort!
This week, there will be everything from founder run clubs, brekkies and firesides, pitch roasts, private investor dinners, meditations and sauna parties, probably. There are honest talks on what ai is doing for the bigger picture on everything from craft and creativity, workflows, manufacturing, markets, careers, identity. Directly from the source.
There is a lot of ai. I combed the cal without the help of an LLM just for the PRINCIPLE. A lot of the posters are Claude ~coded~ and a lot of the copy sounds identical, with the cadence of a dramatic movie trailer [no agenda. no panels. Just you… and the agent. Speaking candidly. No high stakes ——— just high energy.] I’d rather one normal sentence just, explaining the thing. Please don’t make me do more work of translating the BS. I just wanna know if there’s snack and good company.
Anyway there is something for everyone here and there’s a million people flying to NYC just for tech week, and you truly never know who you’ll meet. Could be your next co-founder, investor, mentor, bff. Maybe your soul sister in fashion, branding and events?? i dunno 😏
Plenty of swanky events on rooftops at golden hour, which will literally never get old. JUST COME OUTSIDE, okay. Don’t be shy. See you there 💃🏻
Let me know what else I should add:
Monday June 1
Full stack Supply Chain transformation 📍East Village
Mercury’s Vinyl House 📍West Village (open June 1-3, 9-3p)
Design Thinking meets AI 📍Dumbo
Consumer Goods coffee mixer 📍Tribeca
Patents, trademarks, IP 📍Midtown
VR for arch 📍FiDi
30 min pitch workshop 📍ZOOM
Meet your dubai daddy 📍Soho
Fashion tech panels 📍FIT Chelsea
Future of Visual Commerce 📍Midtown
Advertising & marketing Mixer 📍Nomad
Design Thinking Meets AI 📍Dumbo
The job market 📍Midtown
Rhino meetup 📍Tribeca
Tuesday June 2
Media panel for founders 📍Fidi
Rebuilding the creative stack 📍Flatiron
How ai is shaping content 📍Meatpacking
How do you have a conversation with a city? 📍Midtown..51st st subway
Future of entertainment - Adobe 📍Ukrainian village
Building in 3D 📍West Village
Consumer founder HH 📍West Village
Cocktails for closers? 📍Soho
Consumer crashout + a magician 📍Midtown
/dev/ color panel & mixer 📍Midtown
Unethical hackathon 📍Midtown
Fashion tech: loyalty in ai 📍LES
Fashion tech pitch practice 📍Hudson Yards
Beauty e-com leaders dinner 📍Flatiron
Tech & tranquility 📍Chelsea
Wednesday June 3
Bagels. Roof deck 📍Union Sq
Boat brekkie 📍Brooklyn
GTM morning mixer 📍Manhattan
Grind n Grow - Cacao for founders 📍LES
Pilates for marketers 📍Central Park
Builders table - Adobe 📍Union square
Is Software the New Fast Fashion? 📍Midtown
The Future of Beauty Tech 📍LES
Google: Future of AI for Marketing📍Flatiron
Focus & Flow📍Soho
VR Happy hour 📍Fidi
What are you obsessed with rn 📍Gramercy
AI for commercial grade design📍Flatiron
In the Name of Taste 📍Soho
Secret Garden Party 📍LES
Fashion tech mixer 📍Chelsea
The Intelligent Atelier 📍Chelsea
Yet another AI Event… + a piano 📍Williamsburg
Thursday June 4
OOO 📍Wburg
Pancakes with Pensa- hardware📍Dumbo
Photos & branding📍Midtown
Future of Media Soiree 📍Soho
Data & UX in AI 📍Union Sq
Off Duty - Mirror Mirror AI 📍Chelsea
Creators & Marketers 📍Nomad
AI & Arts 📍Soho
AI in CPG & Retail 📍Gramercy
ADHD in startup life…real 📍Soho
AI Debate 📍Midtown
Design chats 📍Central Park
Fashion Hackathon 📍Flatiron
Fashion Tech x Fintech Mixer Flatiron
NEXUS: creatives in ai 📍Williamsburg
Friday June 5
Does Brand Matter in Venture? 📍WSA
Storytelling & Fine Tuning 📍Midtown
Designers Offline 📍Midtown
The Future of Beauty Tech 📍Hudson yards
Futures happy hour 📍East Village
Saturday June 6
Brain Workout 📍Soho
Fashionology Summit 📍Chelsea
The Unplug: cacao, snacks, facilitated chats📍East Village
Sunday June 7
Recovery walk on the High Line 📍Chelsea
Wednesday June 10
Adobe Creative Cafe 📍West Village
SHIFT: Creative ai summit 📍Virtual
Have fun! Learn something! Talk to cool people!! And please drink water.
…That’s all 😗
xx
Khanna, your fav vibe curator
PS, where were you in 2010??? I wanna know
Omg… People born in 2010 can drive now
About Khanna (HAH-na)
I’m a designer, art director and event producer with a decade in apparel manufacturing, branding and e-com. I’m mostly interested in how things get made and what they do for identity at scale. I built Icon New York to bridge the technical and creative industries, IRL.
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