Almost 300 people packed Smoke Skybar Thursday night for the “relaunch” of Tech Bloc, an advocacy and networking organization for tech workers and the people who love them.
At the multi-level rooftop bar on the near East Side, attendees could watch the sunset, get a free T-shirt and and sign up for memberships that include Tech Bloc’s new Community Platform, a digital gathering space for networking and resources.
The event also marked one year at the helm for Tech Bloc CEO Ileana Gonzalez, who has spent the past year reinvigorating the nonprofit, which was unable to host the massive events it was known for during the pandemic.
“We call this Tech Bloc 2.0,” Gonzalez said. “Like all tech, we gotta evolve, right?”
And while the latest version of Tech Bloc now includes a digital component aimed at connecting users to resources and each other, it will still include the popular live events that were its hallmark, she said. The nonprofit will continue to advocate for city and county policies that create the kind of community that attracts top talent, she added.
Tech Bloc was co-founded in 2015 by local tech giants David Heard, Lew Moorman and Lorenzo Gomez, who summoned local techies after rideshare companies decamped from San Antonio. Hundreds attended that first meeting, immediately turning the nascent group into a political force.
In addition to advocacy, Tech Bloc became known for massive rallies, bringing high-profile speakers like Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix to San Antonio.
In 2022, Tech Bloc measured the size of San Antonio’s tech sector for the first time, which it estimated that year to be worth almost $11 billion, driven in no small part by Port San Antonio, whose cybersecurity footprint continues to grow, and UTSA’s downtown School of Data Science.
Latin American tech
In addition to launching the digital platform and better connecting the existing tech ecosystem here, Gonzalez has made expanding into Mexico and Latin America a priority, an effort that has already begun to bear fruit.
“I saw an opportunity for San Antonio, because of its cultural competency, to become that launch pad into the rest of the U.S. for Latin American startups,” said Gonzalez, a Guadalajara native who moved to San Antonio to attend UTSA and has worked in the startup community since she graduated in 2016.
Tech Bloc will be part of a contingent headed to Querétaro next week, she said, along with officials from the city, Port San Antonio, Alamo Colleges, Greater:SATX and others. Startups there will ask, “How do I expand to San Antonio?” she said.
“And we’ve created this entire soft landing guide — here are the accountants, here’s the lawyers, here’s how to incorporate … and here’s the community, all on a silver platter,” Gonzalez said.
She pointed to Sofka Technologies, an IT services company headquartered in Bogotá, Colombia, which has established a San Antonio office after engaging with Tech Bloc and the city. Mihir Shah, a customer relationship executive with Sofka, said the nonprofit was “instrumental in helping us connect with the city, its people, potential clients and the broader tech community,” in a recent LinkedIn post.
Founders in San Antonio
Will Conway, Tech Bloc’s board chairman, said the city’s tech scene has matured considerably since the group was founded nine years ago. More founders who have successfully exited companies are now in a position to invest, said Conway, the former CEO of Mailgun, which spun out of Rackspace and was sold to Sinch in 2021.
“Ecosystems get built by founders reinvesting into it,” Gonzalez chimed in. “That’s why I had to get these guys on my board.”
But it’s still tough to start your own company, and connecting startups to resources is key part of Tech Bloc’s Community Platform, she said. The platform has two tiers, $50 a year for individuals and $150 a year for startups.
The startup level comes with up to $350,000 in platform credits and discounts, along with mentoring groups for CEOs and CTOs, members’ only events and other resources. There are also enterprise-level memberships that offer perks and will help sustain the organization.
Gonzalez and Conway are both UTSA alums, and Thursday’s event featured a contingent of recent alums and students, including Christian Gonzales and Devon Arzola, both of whom moved from Houston to study cybersecurity.
“There is a lot of networking going on,” said Gonzales, who said the event has made him seriously consider joining the platform. Both said they would stay in San Antonio after graduation for the right job opportunity.
Until then, they said, they’ll keep coming to Tech Bloc events, Arzola said, “and meet more people.”