SCN Las Vegas 2025

Start your day the Las Vegas way — with good coffee, great conversation, and the passionate people building the city's entrepreneurial future.
Ecosystem Breakfast With Las Vegas Locals brings together founders, ecosystem builders, creatives, and community leaders for an open, informal conversation about what’s really happening on the ground in Las Vegas.

We’re honored to welcome special guest Mayor Berkley, joining us to share insights on Las Vegas’s growing innovation landscape and how the city is championing entrepreneurial progress.

Whether you’re looking to learn how Vegas does it, share your own ecosystem experiences, or just meet some incredible people — this is your morning moment.

Come curious. Leave connected.on.

First time attending a Summit? Get your bearings, get connected, and learn about the Startup Champions Network. 

Welcome to Las Vegas! Here's what you're about to see, experience, and learn with the Summit planning team and Summit hosts.

Join us for an immersive driving tour of Las Vegas' Historic Westside, a neighborhood rich in cultural heritage and poised for inclusive economic revitalization. Guided by Claytee White, Director of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV and a leading voice on Westside history, this tour will also feature Helen Norman, Principal of Norman & Associates and a long-time advocate for equitable urban development, and Paul Roberson, founder and CEO of Flo Unleashed, a tech startup founder born and raised in the Westside.

Together, we'll explore key landmarks including Jackson Avenue, the historic commercial corridor; the Harrison House, a former safe haven for Black entertainers during segregation; Abodo Garden, a symbol of community resilience; Jim Gaye Park and Legacy Park, showcasing public investment in placemaking; and the future-forward New West Las Vegas Library, a hub for digital literacy, business incubation, and workforce development.
This tour will highlight how cultural legacy, place-based investment, and entrepreneurship intersect to shape the next chapter of the Westside — and how the startup community can be a part of it.

Enjoy lunch with Nevada Partners, an organization that offers wrap-around services in housing, education, career development, health, and more. Since 1992, they have been at the forefront of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic issues that are barriers to building a healthy, thriving, sustainable, and progressive community. Their mission is to break the cycle of generational poverty by wrapping children in a seamless pipeline of health, social, and educational supports from birth through college while helping parents get quality jobs and build healthier families.

Lunch will be catered by the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas,  a hospitality career training that equips students with the skills needed for family-sustaining careers in Southern Nevada’s vibrant hospitality industry. As the leading provider of workforce development in Las Vegas hospitality, they offer a pathway out of poverty for unemployed and underemployed community members. 

What if we could rewind time — armed with the wisdom we’ve earned through experience — and redesign the entrepreneurial ecosystem from the ground up? Hosted by Ryan Rubio of Zero Labs, this session, we flip the script and ask: If you knew then what you know now, how could we have crafted the ecosystem better for your success?

Join ecosystem builders and founders as they reflect on the pivotal moments, overlooked opportunities, and hard-earned lessons that have shaped their journeys.

What would our neighborhoods look like if we had centered community voices from the start? What partnerships would we prioritize? What projects would we pursue — or abandon — if we truly understood the long-term impact on local people and place?

Hosted by Heather Brown at Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, this session continues the “If We Ran It Back” theme, shifting the lens from founders to community-rooted development. Our panel brings together visionary leaders working at the intersection of history, policy, academia, and on-the-ground development.

Together, they'll explore what it takes to build community projects that aren’t just well-intentioned — but deeply effective. This conversation will unpack real case studies, missed opportunities, and bold ideas for how we can align people, place, and power in future development strategies.

Ecosystems don’t thrive on ambition alone — they grow through alignment, shared vision, and the power of collaboration across institutions, sectors, and communities. But what happens when the pieces don’t quite connect? If we could do it all over again, how would we work differently — together?
In the final session of our “If We Ran It Back” series, we turn our focus to placebuilders — the leaders shaping policy, programs, and partnerships at the regional level. Hosted by Shawna Wells, Legacy Specialist and Founder of 7Gen Legacy, this conversation will explore how we might reimagine collaboration to better support founders, elevate community priorities, and foster entrepreneurial success with intention.
Together, they’ll unpack the question: If we knew then what we know now — how could we have partnered better, moved faster, and built smarter to uplift entrepreneurs and communities alike?

We're headed to the strip for a kickoff party, but first, we want to show you around! Ryan Rubio, Principle at Zero Labs, will give you an insider view of the innovation that happens behind the scenes in Las Vegas. 

Time to party and connect! The Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development is bringing ecosystem builders from the state together to connect with attendees over dinner at Caspian's Rock & Roe.

Located in Caesars Palace, where the likes of The Killers, The Who, Madonna, and Stevie Nicks have performed, Caspian’s adds to the rebellious legacy one gin, one vodka, and one guitar riff at a time. The Las Vegas live music scene will never be the same.

A bus will come at 7:30pm & 9:30pm to pickup guests and take them back to the hotel.