When dozens gathered this week for Pasadena’s Tech Happy Hour, the event reflected what Rob McClinton, president of Innovate Pasadena, has described as the city’s deliberate positioning away from the social media apps and artificial intelligence breakthroughs dominating technology headlines elsewhere.
Instead, the focus aligned with what McClinton calls “hard science” — aerospace engineering, biotechnology research, quantum computing.
“We’re not a lot of consumer-level fluff here,” he said. “Our organizations, our institutions do real, deep, hard work.”
That emphasis shaped Pasadena’s approach to LA Tech Week, the Oct. 13-19 conference organized by venture capital firm a16z that drew technology leaders across Southern California.
While other cities hosted events on trending topics, Pasadena’s Economic Development Division partnered with Innovate Pasadena for four targeted events designed to showcase the city’s research infrastructure and scientific workforce.
The strategic alignment represents a shift for Innovate Pasadena, which moved its annual Connect Week from its usual October slot into LA Tech Week “to give greater exposure to the Pasadena-based companies and organizations that want to participate,” McClinton said in a recent interview.
Friday morning’s concluding event, a panel discussion on deep tech entrepreneurship, brings together representatives from Honeybee Robotics, Pinc Technologies and Motiv Space Systems — companies whose work ranges from space exploration hardware to technologies emerging from Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“We want to help people see people like them who once had an idea for this deep tech product and show them how they went from having the idea to becoming a founder and launching their company,” McClinton said. “We want to help them follow their dreams and launch their company and then launch that company in Pasadena.”
Even technical expertise doesn’t eliminate entrepreneurial anxiety, he noted: “Even if you have the skill to put something on the moon, you may still be apprehensive about presenting an idea to a venture capital for funding.”
The panel, a partnership between Innovate Pasadena, the city and the Small Business Development Center at Pasadena City College, is in its second year.
Infrastructure and Incentives
David Klug, the city’s economic development director, framed Pasadena’s pitch to prospective investors around proximity and concentration: “This is a city where Mars rovers are built, biotech labs tackle cancer and blindness, and quantum computing is being invented — and that activity sits next to Caltech, JPL, Carnegie Science, and major medical research hubs.”
The pitch comes as Trammell Crow Company works through the entitlement process to build nearly 100,000 square feet of multi-tenant office and laboratory space adjacent to the Caltech campus. The project would follow recent additions including the Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement, now under construction, and the Resnick Sustainability Center.
“We hope investors see that when they choose Pasadena, they’re in good company with world-class institutions that are growing and changing the future of industries,” Klug said in written responses to questions.
Rather than pursuing large-scale incubator programs immediately, city officials are focusing on what Klug described as practical support: helping companies find space, connecting them to existing networks and explaining available incentives.
“This week, our collaboration is about connecting founders to what Pasadena already offers year-round, including help plugging into a deep tech network, and navigating resources and incentives,” Klug said. “We’re using LA Tech Week to streamline introductions — founders meet the right people faster and learn how to access the City’s support channels. Those are practical steps that hard-science teams can act on during and immediately after events.”
Measuring Momentum
The city plans to track several metrics to evaluate whether the week’s exposure translates into sustained engagement. Klug cited founder inquiries through the city’s “Build It in Pasadena” contact channels, follow-up meetings with the economic development team, space activity including tours and proposals for laboratory facilities, and new participation in Innovate Pasadena’s recurring programs.
“These align with how we help companies — find space, connect to the network, leverage incentives — and they give us a read on momentum coming out of Tech Week,” he said.
Those recurring programs include a Friday Coffee Meetup on the first Friday of each month and Pasadena Tech Happy Hour on the third Thursday. Thursday’s event, co-hosted by Innovate Pasadena, the city’s Economic Development Division and Google Developers Group, drew 161 attendees with an additional nine expressing interest.
Beyond Trending Topics
The four Pasadena events — including Tuesday’s discussion on designing climate solutions and Wednesday’s panel on technology and human wellbeing — notably avoided artificial intelligence as a primary focus despite its prominence at technology conferences.
“If you take a look at the four events under the Innovate Pasadena, none of them really talk about AI,” McClinton said. “We wanted to continue to bring in outside voices, more expert voices to talk about topics that are still relevant even if they’re not trendy.”
Tuesday’s climate technology event reflected recent urgency. “Obviously given the fires from earlier this year and their connection to climate change, it’s very relevant for our community as to what are the technologies we’re developing to help mitigate or minimize the climate disasters,” McClinton said.
Wednesday’s “Hacking Human Happiness” event, held at ADP’s offices in a closed session due to building security requirements, addressed what McClinton described as widespread technology fatigue.
“It’s particularly trendy at this time because a lot of people are just facing the burnout from their technology, from social media and all the things that have come with it,” he said. “People are starting to look for alternatives, and they want to stop being at the mercy of their devices and their services and to instead reconnect with each other as humans.”
The panel featured Gabriel Reilich, head of Upworthy; Dr. Gloria Mark, a psychologist from the University of California, Irvine; and Vince Lynch, chief executive of IV.AI. The discussion examined “how do we start using what we know about technology and human psychology to benefit humankind, not just to sell or advertising,” McClinton said.
“A lot of folks have always believed that technology should enable and empower humanity, not supplant it,” he added. “That, I think, lines with Pasadena’s overall desire as a community and as a tech community to empower the betterment of humanity, not just moving the needle or moving advertising dollars for the sake of the dollars.”
Innovate Pasadena is discussing an ongoing partnership with ADP to host similar events that would serve both the company’s employees and the broader community, comparable to the organization’s existing monthly programs.
“We are very proud to be re-engaged with ADP,” McClinton said, “We have talked about having this as an ongoing series.”
Long-Term Strategy
Klug emphasized that LA Tech Week represents one component of a longer-term economic development strategy rather than a standalone initiative.
“Our approach is long-term partnership driven,” he said. “We’ll keep convening investors and founders around Pasadena’s existing strengths — Caltech adjacency, hard-science talent — and use that to understand where ours and our partners’ support can have the greatest impact.”
The strategy involves working with partners to determine where support — whether resource navigation, zoning assistance, funding access or industry convenings — can be most effective as economic conditions evolve.
“We’ll be listening to and learning from our hard-science audience this week to learn what future programs will be most useful to them,” Klug said.
Honeybee Robotics, one of Friday’s panelists, was purchased by Blue Origin, the space company backed by Jeff Bezos, but maintains its Pasadena operations. McClinton said he participated in panel preparation discussions with company representatives Tuesday morning, two hours before his interview.
The emphasis on deep technology reflects what McClinton described as Pasadena’s established ecosystem. While a16z chose “Deep Tech Real Impact” as LA Tech Week’s overall theme, the message resonated locally because “Pasadena’s overwhelmingly does deep tech work,” he said. “We do very rigorous B2B type products and services.”
“The theme that they chose really worked well for us,” he said, “and made moving our events to within Tech Week” a natural alignment.
Get our daily Pasadena newspaper in your email box. Free.
Get all the latest Pasadena news, more than 10 fresh stories daily, 7 days a week at 7 a.m.
