Southern California is the spine of the American industrial renaissance: the aerospace corridor from El Segundo to Long Beach, the advanced-manufacturing belt of Orange County, the test ranges of the Mojave, and the ports anchoring Indo-Pacific logistics. SDTW brings this ecosystem into one room for one week each September.
We program across four pillars — Sea to Space, Build It in Time, The Capital Stack, and The Allied Base — with three named flagship summits, plenary firesides & on-the-record discussions, founder dinners, an OTA / contracting clinic, and a Long Beach corridor showcase.
New this edition: an operational program running inside the Week. Deep-tech teams are matched to real capability gaps — sourced from the operators defending ports, airports, logistics corridors, and the grid — then supported through a build with live judging by the people who scoped the problems.
Not a weekend coding contest. A three-day sprint with follow-on routing into OTAs, SBIRs, pilots, and capital — the same week.
Opening & closing receptions and the public-policy forum on the Queensway promenade.
Floor walks and corridor showcase across the Long Beach aerospace & manufacturing belt.
Flagship summits and founder dinners in East Village & Pine Avenue.
Operating thesis, three-year arc, and how the Week is structured.
Read about → 02Numbers, moments, quotes, and coverage from last September.
View recap → 0374 partners across two editions — primes, programs, capital, operators.
View partners → 0422 questions across attending, program, sponsors, and press logistics.
Read FAQ →Three ways to get on the 2026 program: apply for the cohort, request the sponsorship prospectus, or host a side event under the SDTW banner.
Invite-only. Founders and operators building critical technology, general partners at deep-tech and defense funds, program leads at DIU / AFRL / ONR / DARPA, and executives from the industrial primes. The cohort is curated; applications are reviewed rolling.
SDTW runs as a hybrid. The flagship summits and founder dinners are invite-only. District-wide satellite forums, lab tours, and the opening and closing receptions are open by application. Roughly a third of the week is open-access.
Yes. Sponsorship is gated behind the 2026 prospectus — request the deck here. Tiers range from event partner through title sponsor; we respond within five business days.
Yes. Funds, primes, labs, and community builders can host satellite events under the SDTW banner. Apply to host — the host council reviews weekly through August 2026.
Monthly dispatches from the SDTW team — partner news, program drops, and the occasional memo from the ecosystem. Built for people who'd rather read than tweet.
We'll email you when applications open, plus the monthly program dispatch.