San Juan Tech Meetup

The San Juan Tech Meetup (SJTM) is for the art, design, university, entrepreneurial, and tech communities in San Juan, Puerto Rico. SJTM's goal is to connect all players in the creative economy (not only tech) through networking, sharing, collaboration, and feedback. SJTM events cover a wide range of topics such as: entrepreneurship, art, education, and technology. 

SJTM would not be possible without the active support and participation of the SJTM Advisory Board, which is composed of leaders of the Puerto Rican creative economy, including:  

Laura Cantero, Executive Director of Grupo Guayacán, Inc. She has over ten years of experience in the financial services industry (banking and insurance), specifically in the implementation and delivery of organizational effectiveness and corporate change initiatives focused on improving company performance.

Ramphis Castro, serial entrepreneur and pioneer in cross-platform native mobile technology. He is the founding partner of Mindchemy, which enables most of the relevant tech-entrepreneurship programs in Puerto Rico: Startup Weekend, Startup NEXT, Startup Digest, Hack Puerto Rico, CodeTrotters, Founder Institute, Lean Startup Machine, among others. 

Carlos Cobian, an entrepreneur recognized for developing successful businesses in the entertainment, digital media and technology sectors in Puerto Rico and Latin America.  He is the founder of H3 Tech Conference, which is a premier innovation conference where tech-hackers, the early-stage startup scene, and the creative economy gather to network. Carlos is also an advocate for innovation-based entrepreneurship and the author of a blog, Cobian Media.

Eduardo Emanuelli, Vice President and Sales Leader for Hub international Insurance Brokers. Ed is also the founder and general partner in Groundswell Capital LLC, a family private equity investment arm with over 20 investments in technology, food, entertainment, real estate and disruptive arts founded in 2012.

Isabel Fernandez, Partner and Co-Founder, ALL GRANTS, LLC a strategic funding development consultancy firm helping Non-profit, NGOs and organizations to identify, plan and manage their potential funding resources, prepare competitive grant proposals for federal agencies, private foundations and local fundraising opportunities. As the former Senior Executive Aide to the Executive Director and Federal Grants Manager of the Puerto Rico Trade and Export Co., she created the PRO TECH program, allowing technology based startups to obtain seed money, mentorship and to represent the island at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Trade Shows in 2015 and 2016, as well as to provide technical capacity resources for local research teams interested in obtaining grants from the federal Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) program.

Marcos Polanco, Silicon Valley Director of the Founder Institute and is serving as a Kauffman Fellow under the mentorship of Adeo Ressi at Expansive Ventures, a network based, early-stage venture capital fund that leverages the collective intelligence of the Founder Institute to make investments worldwide.

Fernando Rovira, Capital Member of Ferraiuoli and Chair of its Corporate and Real Estate Department. He joined Ferraiuoli in 2004 after serving as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of a publicly traded financial institution and working as a corporate attorney at McConnell Valdés.

Juan Carlos Stolberg, corporate and transactional attorney with experience in mergers and acquisitions, private equity, venture capital, startup law, art law, fashion law and hospitality law.  He is also co-founder of Piloto 151, San Juan’s premiere co-working space dedicated to the strengthening of the entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem in Puerto Rico. 

Finally, SJTM is honored to have Gilberto J. Marxuach as a guest advisor to the SJTM board.

Gilberto J. Marxuach, recently appointed President of the University of Sagrado Corazón (University of the Sacred Heart) in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He comes to higher education after a distinguished career in law, business and public service, during which he was closely involved in a variety of educational matters.

To get more information about SJTM, listen to this interview of Ken Kay on 'Startups of Puerto Rico': 

Interview of SJTM founder on 'Startups of Puerto Rico'