Tech Week, Emerging Startups Trends in the Public Sector, and Our Pitch to Join ContraSearch in Boston and New York

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Hello everyone.
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In a couple of days, Contra Search is going to be hosting events for Tech Week.
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Now, if this is the first time you're hearing about Tech Week, it's a week of events that are hosted by startups and VC investors.
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And the whole point is to bring people together who are in the tech ecosystem.
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So, you know, if you're thinking about entrepreneurship and you're wondering about the sector, I recommend that you look out for our events during tech week because we're going to be focused on the public sector and there's a lot of opportunity there for you to build in.
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So let me get into more details.
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We're holding events in not just Boston, which is the first time that Tech Week is going to be launched there.
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That's exciting.
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But we're also going to be in New York.
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And the format of the events are the same for both cities where it starts out where guests get to network for the first part of the event, and then we transition into a panel discussion.
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The difference between the two events in the two cities is simply the guest who will be joining us for the panel discussion.
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Each guest in both cities comes from City Council.
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In Boston, you have City Councilor Enrique Peppen, and then in New York, you have City Councilor Julie Wan.
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So really recommend you to consider Contra Search and to consider our event.
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It's going to happen on the last Friday of May and the first Friday of June.
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If you want to sign up, the best way to do it is to go to www.contra search.com, all one word.
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If you go to the footer, you're going to see a link to the CS network.
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Open that page up and then you'll see the links to the events.
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So let me try and convince anyone who's listening who hasn't signed up to those events and who are going to be in Boston or New York for that time period why you should join us for either or for both of them.
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So we're going to start with the speakers.
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So the speaker here is a city counselor for District 5.
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And if you know Boston, then Enrique Peppen is representing neighborhoods of Hyde Park, Metapan, and Rosalindale.
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So I'm very excited to have the city councilor join us for the conversation in Boston because he brings a lot of experience in government.
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So it starts with him in undergrad where he interned for the former city counselor Tito Jackson.
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And then from then on its history.
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So post-graduating undergrad, he goes on to serve as a district coordinator for Congressman Joe Kennedy III.
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He then goes on to work for the mayor's office in 2019 with Marty Walsh.
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And then we now know him as the city councilor.
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So I'm excited because he brings a lot of experience in government across different facets of it, different aspects.
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So when he's in the room with our guest, the idea is to cover the lay of the land of opportunity for our founders who are thinking about building or already building in the public sector, and he can speak about it covering different angles of government, different layers of it.
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So that's who's gonna join us in Boston.
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And why you should join us in New York is because we're gonna be speaking with Julie Juan.
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So she is the district representative or the representative for District 26.
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And if you know about New York, she covers Western Queens.
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So these are the neighborhoods of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Astoria, and Woodside.
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She's the first woman to hold that office and the first immigrant as well.
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I'm really excited to have Julie Juan join us for the panel discussion because she, prior to being the city counselor, spent a decade at IBM where she was an advisor to the federal government and was tasked with reworking the use of technology for various agencies that go and serve the greater society.
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So she has a lot of experience on the technical side of things and look forward to that conversation because again, when it comes to laying out market opportunities for founders to build around, she's gonna have that perspective not just as a city counselor, but someone who's worked with at the federal level.
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So if the speakers have not convinced you yet for why you should be joining the conversation, then let's transition our focus to the guest list.
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Because across both cities, we have in total more than 200 people who have signed up to join the conversation.
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And the breakdown is as follows.
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Of course, a majority of the people who are going to be joining the conversation are founders.
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And some of them are still in stealth mode, which means that you don't know what they're building and you don't know the name of the company, but others have already publicly announced the name of the company and have a live website with their product and services listed.
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And in that category, you see founders who are already VC backed, which is cool.
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So that is the first category of guests who are gonna be in the room.
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We also have investors joining us across both events, and some of the investors support and fund founders with a strong social mission.
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So it doesn't surprise me that they're going to be in the room, they're gonna be there.
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We also have students who are in undergrad and grad programs who are possibly thinking about entering the field of entrepreneurship, maybe within the public sector.
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So happy to have them join.
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And then we also have professionals in the workforce who may pivot into entrepreneurship and may also build in the public sector.
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So you're going to be in good company if you decide to join us for either or both of those events.
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And let me tell you, there are guests who are joining us in Boston and then traveling to New York to then join us for the event there.
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Uh, as a reminder, they're happening at the last Friday of May and the first Friday of June.
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All right, so let's explain why Conscious Search is hosting these events in the first place and why we care.
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So we really want to bring or strengthen the partnership between founders and government because that's a partnership that has been in existence for many years.
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I only need to point to two examples to prove this case.
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Look at the modern internet as one, and if you need another, look at your GPS system that's integrated into your phone.
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The building blocks that went to that enabled this advanced technology originated from partnerships between the federal government and innovators in the past.
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And it's because of those partnerships that we have these cool tools and gadgets today.
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And really the reason why we're doing these events and even hosting a podcast where we're bringing people who can speak to market needs, emerging ones, is because we want to continue and to strengthen that partnership.
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We think that in the world today where AI is changing how we engage one another, that that partnership definitely needs to be more central in a lot of our conversations.
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And if founders want to pick a place to build, we think that it's a great time to build in the public sector.
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So that's why we're doing this.
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And now let's pivot to the guest list more deeply.
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Because if you're a listener right now, and you know, again, if you're thinking about what event to attend and you're like, hmm, maybe I do want to build in the private in the public sector, then let me tell you some of the trends that we're seeing when it comes to the type of startups who are going to be in both events to tell you where we're seeing a lot of activity within the public sector and where we're seeing some mild activity and where we did not see any activity, but maybe it's a place where you can jump in because we're definitely seeing it outside of the two events.
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Where we're seeing a lot of activity right now is in two categories.
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A lot of a lot of startups are focusing a lot of time and resources in utilizing AI to expedite government workflows.
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And then another layer of startups are using AI, I'm sure, to build civic data infrastructure.
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So, what does that really mean?
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For the first category, that means that startups are building tools to help government agencies process data faster.
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They're used, they're using AI to automate repetitive workflows, so maybe through the use of agents.
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We're also seeing the use of startups building products and services that help agencies distill insights from troves of data because let's face it, government has a lot of information.
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And so they're using AI to help them find useful insights to help make their work more efficient and to scale it.
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And then the other use of AI that we're seeing from startups in this category is the enhancement using AI to enhance decision making.
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That's a lot of interesting work that's happening in that layer.
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Let's look at the other bucket where we're seeing a lot of activity, and that's the specific data infrastructure that we're seeing startups focus on.
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In this bucket, we're seeing startups try and make public records more accessible.
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And this is not just accessibility for the representative in office, but also for candidates who might run and need to learn more about the district or what's going on in government so that they can build their platform around it, or and it's also for voters too.
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So they're trying to make accessibility widely available for everyone.
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We're also seeing startups make AI tools that do real-time sentiment analysis for when representatives are meeting with their constituents, so they're they're seeing the analysis in real time.
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That's cool.
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And we're also seeing startups build dashboards for municipal officials, and also their startups are focusing on how residents and representatives engage each other.
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So those two buckets are very busy and filled with a lot of competitors, but don't let that scare you if you're still thinking about where to build because competition is good, right?
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Ultimately, it pushes you to build very good products and services and then deliver great value to the customers.
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So we're gonna now transition our focus to the second layer or you know, second facet of startups where we I expected to see a lot more momentum in the guest list for both of our events, but we didn't really see that, and it's still worth noting.
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So the two areas that I thought I would see a lot more momentum are in public and climate infrastructure.
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Now, if you think about it, it makes sense why we're not seeing a lot of startups sign up in in these two categories, and it's it has a lot to do with the regulatory uh system in the United States.
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If you look at climate, it's a very divisive issue.
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The president, to give you an example, is rolling back a lot of policies that would have transitioned the American economy into a cleaner one.
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So that might explain why we're not seeing a lot of excitement here.
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And then on the side of the public infrastructure, we also know that it's very difficult, at least when you look at housing, to drive innovation.
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Because when it comes to housing, there's so many rules and regulations that slow down the process of building, and that slowing down only makes building more expensive in the United States.
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So the regulatory framework isn't favorable in the current moment, and maybe that explains why I didn't see a lot of momentum there.
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But that's a big, you know, climate is a huge issue in the United States.
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A lot of entrepreneurs are trying to build there, and I wish I saw a lot of those folks sign up to the event.
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That's okay.
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Maybe I just need to continue hosting events and they'll show up.
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Now let's look at another category of startups where I didn't see any momentum at all, but in the guest list.
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But I know these are startups that are growing because I'm seeing them being used in in the public.
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So these are I have two startups in mind, and again, founders or potential founders.
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These are probably areas where you may want to jump in.
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Maybe you can tailor the product or tools differently than what they're currently being used for, but if not, you can jump in and be competitors.
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So there are startups that are build are using AI to build AI twins.
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It's funny because your host, myself, is an identical twin, and the whole idea is that you're using AI twins to scale the work of a candidate and or a representative so that they meet their duties more effectively.
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For a candidate, it's really to help voters meet the candidate at scale because a candidate cannot be everywhere all at once, but hey, maybe you can talk to their AI twin and then get to meet the candidate that way, and so the candidate gets to have more impressions through the use of their AI twin.
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Really cool.
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I have I know of only one company that is building it for candidates.
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I haven't met a company that's building it for the incumbent, and in this case, the incumbent may use the AI just for the internal teams where they're more receptive to work with AI.
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I know that if you're building AI for voters, voters in the US are not really privy to work with AI.
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They don't they're not happy with the developments happening.
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You can see it in the protests that are preventing AI data centers from being built, as just one example.
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So those are two areas uh or AI twins is one hot topic growth area where I'm seeing startups really blow up.
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Not in the public sector, but they're bringing it into the public sector now.
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And then the other category where I haven't seen that much excitement, but I'm in the public sector, but I am seeing it elsewhere, is the use of AI generated content or AI content creators or content creators that are AI generated.
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That's a very divisive topic too, because well, I don't have to explain it to you.
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When you open your social media app, I don't think you're excited when you when you're seeing videos that are AI generated.
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Maybe it depends on the generation.
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I prefer, for example, to see content generated by real people.
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The moment I can tell that something's AI generated, I just skip it.
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But maybe the younger generations who are more accustomed to AI don't care or are even interested in seeing AI generated content.
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But I'm seeing, for instance, the Trump administration utilize AI generated content to promote a candidate or to promote the president.
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And so I haven't those are not startups that are joining this event.
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Again, it's just two, I'm just hosting these events for the first time, but these are examples, right?
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Uh, if you're a founder, the lay of the land is wide and exciting, and you could either be where there's a lot of activity or move to a place where the momentum is just building.
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One thing to note is that a lot of these startups aren't just focused in government.
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So let me let me paraphrase this.
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When it comes to using AI to expedite workflow inefficiencies, those startups are actually hitting a number of industries.
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They're just also tailoring it to government as well.
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That's something to make very clear because, for instance, if you're a company serving candidates, just note that that's a very cyclical business cycle, and you may want to expand your tool and product so that it's serving all levels of government so that you're always in business generating revenue.
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So that's one thing I need to caveat because I you may want to nestle just in the public sector, but it might be to your benefit if you're serving the public and private sector.
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So when the two events conclude, we'll come back and highlight a lot of the key findings from not just the conversations I have with founders, but also with the panelists who are joining us across both cities so that we continue this conversation that is just starting here at Conscious Search about the enriching partnership between government and founders.
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So excited and we look forward to seeing many of you there.
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And if you want to sign up again, go to www.conscious.com, toggle to the footer where you're gonna see a link to the CS network, open that page up and you'll see the links to the events.
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We look forward to having you guys there and see you at the next episode.