Past events
    Completed event

    August 12 at Hacker Dojo: The First StartupA2Z Founder Gathering

    August 12, 2026Hacker Dojo, Mountain View
    StartupA2Z founder gathering at Hacker Dojo on August 12, 2026Stories & demos

    What happened

    The event at a glance

    StartupA2Z's first Hacker Dojo Founder Pitch & Mix brought builders together for practical startup fundamentals, founder demonstrations, direct feedback, and community conversation. Four presentations stood out: affordable hands-on computing, easier FPGA deployment for machine-learning teams, continuous application security, and more consistent AI-video production.

    Startup Basics from A to Z
    Founder pitches and live product demonstrations
    Audience pitches and direct feedback
    Founder and community networking

    The StartupA2Z difference

    Founder stories and product demos

    These stories are drawn from the presentations, session photos, and supporting public sources. They capture the problem each team brought into the room, the approach they demonstrated, and the lesson another builder can apply.

    Founder talk 01 · Keyframe AI

    Moving AI video from impressive clips to repeatable production

    Digvijay Goswami and Sidharth Raja

    Keyframe AI profile
    Keyframe AI founders Sidharth Raja and Digvijay Goswami presenting at Hacker Dojo

    The problem

    • AI video can generate striking individual clips without maintaining a coherent story.
    • Characters, scenes, motion, and art direction may change between shots.
    • Creative teams need iteration and control, not only one impressive output.

    What they demonstrated

    • Develop the narrative and script
    • Generate visual scenes
    • Review continuity and creative direction

    Founder takeaway

    • Own the workflow
    • Preserve creative control
    Read the full Founder’s Playbook

    Founder talk 02 · One Dollar Computer

    Making hands-on computing accessible for more children

    ClaudIO Olmedo

    One Dollar Computer website
    ClaudIO Olmedo demonstrating the One Dollar Computer at Hacker Dojo

    The problem

    • Hands-on technology education often assumes access to expensive laptops and laboratories.
    • Finished consumer devices can hide how computing works from the learner.
    • Cost and complexity prevent many children from experimenting directly with hardware.

    What they demonstrated

    • Use an open RISC-V foundation
    • Remove unnecessary hardware cost
    • Expose the computer as a learning system

    Founder takeaway

    • Start with the excluded user
    • Remove hidden assumptions
    Read the full Founder’s Playbook

    Founder talk 03 · ConfigAI

    Reducing the expertise barrier between AI models and FPGAs

    Ayush Kumar and the ConfigAI team

    ConfigAI website
    Ayush Kumar presenting ConfigAI to the StartupA2Z audience

    The problem

    • Machine-learning engineers and chip-design teams work with different tools and abstractions.
    • FPGA deployment can require hardware languages, scheduling, mapping, and specialized optimization.
    • The expertise gap can turn deployment into a months-long engineering project.

    What they demonstrated

    • Accept a familiar model format
    • Analyze the model and hardware target
    • Automate mapping and scheduling

    Founder takeaway

    • Meet developers where they work
    • Automate the expertise bottleneck
    Read the full Founder’s Playbook

    Founder talk 04 · PurpleLens

    Treating application security as a continuous engineering capability

    Divakar Prayaga

    PurpleLens website
    Divakar Prayaga presenting PurpleLens at the StartupA2Z event

    The problem

    • AI-assisted development helps teams ship code faster.
    • Attackers increasingly automate discovery and exploitation.
    • Periodic testing can identify problems only after they have become expensive release blockers.

    What they demonstrated

    • Test throughout development
    • Find weaknesses before release
    • Return findings to engineering quickly

    Founder takeaway

    • Shift feedback earlier
    • Treat security as engineering
    Read the full Founder’s Playbook

    Key lessons

    What founders should remember

    • Accessibility can be a product requirement, not a feature added later.
    • Good developer tools hide specialized complexity without hiding control.
    • Security has to move at the same speed as product development.
    • Repeatability and workflow control matter more than a single impressive AI output.
    • Founder events are most useful when builders show unfinished work and receive direct feedback.