As artificial intelligence reshapes industries and investment continues flowing into Florida, Tampa Bay Tech\u2019s poweredUP conference is returning May 20 with a central question driving much of the region\u2019s growing innovation economy: What does it look like for Tampa Bay to win as Tampa Bay in the tech sector?<\/p>\n
The annual conference, presented by A-LIGN and hosted at the Mahaffey Theater, is expected to bring together more than 1,000 business leaders, founders, investors and technology professionals from across the region. Organizers say the event is focused less on comparing Tampa Bay to Silicon Valley or Austin and more on understanding the region\u2019s own strengths in cybersecurity, AI, defense, healthcare innovation and enterprise software.<\/p>\n
\u201cTampa Bay has been an underrated ecosystem for a long time,\u201d said Meghan O\u2019Keefe, executive director of Tampa Bay Tech. \u201cPost-Covid, people started moving here and bringing their businesses here,\u201d she added. \u201cWe have people building really cool things. There\u2019s a lot of collaboration between businesses here that other ecosystems don\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe pointed to the region\u2019s industry diversity, MacDill Air Force Base and the University of South Florida\u2019s growing AI initiatives as advantages for Tampa Bay\u2019s technology sector.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence will dominate much of this year\u2019s event programming, with sessions focused on workforce transformation, enterprise AI adoption and cybersecurity.<\/p>\n
But O\u2019Keefe said many companies are still struggling to move beyond experimentation. \u201cIt\u2019s still the wild wild west,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are understanding more the governance of AI and how to introduce it into their companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt starts at the ground: with data.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conference will also feature a keynote from Brett Winton, chief futurist at ARK Invest, who will discuss technologies expected to reshape the global economy over the next decade, including AI, robotics and advanced computing.<\/p>\n
One of the day\u2019s marquee discussions, \u201cBuilding Billion-Dollar Companies in Tampa Bay,\u201d will bring together leaders from Webull, A-LIGN and TENEX.AI to discuss scaling major companies locally.<\/p>\n
According to O\u2019Keefe, one of the region still has one major problem:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re getting more investment in companies here than ever,\u201d she said. \u201cBut a lot of the investments are not coming from local businesses, organizations and individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first time, poweredUP will also include a hiring event connecting employers directly with local talent seeking opportunities in AI, cybersecurity, technology and operations roles. Organizers say the addition reflects growing demand for workforce development as AI rapidly changes the labor market.<\/p>\n
poweredUP 2026 Presented by A-LIGN<\/p>\n
Date: May 20, 2026
Location: Duke Energy Center for the Arts \u2013 Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg<\/p>\n
Schedule<\/p>\n
10:30 a.m. \u2013 12:00 p.m. | Hiring Event
11:00 a.m. | Networking & Geek Row
12:00 p.m. | Main stage programming begins
4:30 p.m. \u2013 6:00 p.m. | Radically Connected\u00ae Happy Hour<\/p>\n
Featured sessions<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay\u2019s Innovation Economy
\nWorkforce in the Age of AI
\nBuilding Billion-Dollar Companies in Tampa Bay
\nFrom Pilot to Production: Scaling AI in the Enterprise
\nAI & Cybersecurity: Autonomous Defense
\nAI Roast: Prompting Best Practices<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be in touch. Send your thoughts, comments and story ideas to aaron@cityverse.life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As artificial intelligence reshapes industries and investment continues flowing into Florida, Tampa Bay Tech\u2019s poweredUP conference is returning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-269861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}