Registration
This event is free to attend.
Agenda
Once you're registered, you can pick the sessions you want here.
Tuesday, June 8
8:00 – 9:00 AM
Registration and Breakfast
Courtyard
Pick up your badge at the Hall J desk and grab breakfast in the Courtyard.
9:00 – 10:00 AM
Opening Keynote: Building on the Gulf Coast
Main Hall
- Renée Fontenot (CTO, Riverbend Software)
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Leading Through Change
LeadershipRoom 20313 seats left
- Jordan Lee (Founder, Lagniappe Media)
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Product Discovery That Works
ProductRoom 20118 seats left
- Marcus Hebert (VP Product, Pelican Labs)
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Scaling Postgres Without Tears
EngineeringRoom 20211 seats left
- Andre Guidry (Principal Engineer, Gulfstream Energy)
12:00 – 1:00 PM
Lunch & Networking
Courtyard
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Data You Can Trust
Product + EngineeringRoom 20122 seats left
- Priya Patel (Head of Data, Crescent Health)
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Design Systems at a Bank
ProductRoom 2028 seats left
- Camille Broussard (Design Director, Magnolia Bank)
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Running Remote Teams That Ship
LeadershipRoom 20320 seats left
- Grace Thibodeaux (Chief People Officer, Pelican Labs)
Rituals, tools and habits from teams spread across five time zones.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Building a Feedback Culture
LeadershipRoom 20320 seats left
- Grace Thibodeaux (Chief People Officer, Pelican Labs)
Make honest feedback normal, from one-on-ones to all-hands.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Pricing Experiments That Don't Backfire
ProductRoom 20225 seats left
- Marcus Hebert (VP Product, Pelican Labs)
Run pricing tests without upsetting the customers you already have.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Shipping AI Features Responsibly
Engineering + AI & DataRoom 20130 seats left
- Luis Navarro (ML Lead, Delta Analytics)
How to test, launch and monitor features built on large language models.
5:30 – 7:30 PM
Welcome Reception
Courtyard
Drinks, music and New Orleans small plates to close out day one.
Wednesday, June 9
9:00 – 9:45 AM
Morning Keynote: The State of Southern Tech
Main Hall
- Mei Chen (Founding Partner, Levee Ventures)
Where the region's companies, talent and funding are heading next.
10:00 – 11:00 AM
Customer Interviews at Scale
ProductRoom 20130 seats left
- Camille Broussard (Design Director, Magnolia Bank)
Talk to a hundred customers a quarter without a research team.
10:00 – 11:00 AM
Hiring Your First Ten Engineers
LeadershipRoom 20314 seats left
- Renée Fontenot (CTO, Riverbend Software)
- Jordan Lee (Founder, Lagniappe Media)
10:00 – 11:00 AM
Kubernetes for Small Teams
EngineeringRoom 20224 seats left
- Tasha Robichaux (VP Engineering, Bayou Cloud)
When it's worth it, when it isn't, and the simplest setup that works.
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Incident Response in Hurricane Season
EngineeringRoom 20210 seats left
- Andre Guidry (Principal Engineer, Gulfstream Energy)
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Managing Managers
LeadershipRoom 20320 seats left
- Renée Fontenot (CTO, Riverbend Software)
The jump from leading people to leading leaders.
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Practical LLM Evaluation
AI & DataRoom 20130 seats left
- Luis Navarro (ML Lead, Delta Analytics)
- Priya Patel (Head of Data, Crescent Health)
Build test sets and scorecards so you know when a model change helps.
12:00 – 1:00 PM
Lunch and Networking
Courtyard
Lunch is served in the Courtyard. Find someone new to sit with.
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Board Meetings That Actually Help
LeadershipRoom 20320 seats left
- Mei Chen (Founding Partner, Levee Ventures)
- Jordan Lee (Founder, Lagniappe Media)
Turn your board from an audience into a resource.
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Roadmaps Without Dates
ProductRoom 20130 seats left
- Marcus Hebert (VP Product, Pelican Labs)
Share direction with customers and sales without promising deadlines.
1:30 – 3:00 PM
Workshop: Build a Data Pipeline
Engineering + AI & DataRoom 20215 seats left
- Priya Patel (Head of Data, Crescent Health)
- Andre Guidry (Principal Engineer, Gulfstream Energy)
Bring a laptop. In ninety minutes you'll build a working pipeline from raw files to a dashboard.
3:30 – 4:30 PM
Startup Pitch Showcase
Main Hall
- Mei Chen (Founding Partner, Levee Ventures)
Six local startups pitch in five minutes each. Vote for your favorite in the app.
6:30 – 9:00 PM
Dinner Cruise on the Mississippi
Steamboat Natchez120 seats left
Dinner and jazz aboard the Steamboat Natchez. Boarding at Toulouse Street Wharf at 6:30 PM.
Thursday, June 10
9:00 – 10:00 AM
Fireside Chat: Scaling from Louisiana
Main Hall
- Jordan Lee (Founder, Lagniappe Media)
- Mei Chen (Founding Partner, Levee Ventures)
Two founders on hiring, raising and selling nationally from the Gulf Coast.
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Data Privacy by Design
AI & DataRoom 20320 seats left
- Sam Okafor (Security Engineer, Crescent Health)
Build privacy into products from the first sketch, not the last audit.
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Design Systems That Scale
ProductRoom 20130 seats left
- Camille Broussard (Design Director, Magnolia Bank)
Keep a design system useful as the team triples.
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Observability on a Budget
EngineeringRoom 20225 seats left
- Tasha Robichaux (VP Engineering, Bayou Cloud)
Logs, metrics and traces that answer real questions without a huge bill.
12:00 – 1:00 PM
Lunch and Sponsor Expo
Courtyard
Lunch in the Courtyard, with sponsor tables open in the Main Hall foyer.
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Accessibility Is a Product Feature
ProductRoom 20225 seats left
- Camille Broussard (Design Director, Magnolia Bank)
Make accessibility part of every release, not a separate project.
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Compensation Conversations
LeadershipRoom 20320 seats left
- Grace Thibodeaux (Chief People Officer, Pelican Labs)
Talk about pay openly and fairly as a growing company.
1:30 – 2:30 PM
From Prototype to Production ML
Engineering + AI & DataRoom 20130 seats left
- Luis Navarro (ML Lead, Delta Analytics)
What changes when a model has to run every day for paying customers.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Lightning Talks
Main Hall
Eight speakers, five minutes each, on whatever they're most excited about.
4:30 – 5:30 PM
Women in Tech Meetup
Courtyard
- Renée Fontenot (CTO, Riverbend Software)
- Grace Thibodeaux (Chief People Officer, Pelican Labs)
An open meetup for women and allies working in technology.
Friday, June 11
9:00 – 10:00 AM
Metrics That Matter
Product + AI & DataRoom 20130 seats left
- Priya Patel (Head of Data, Crescent Health)
Pick the handful of product numbers worth watching every week.
9:00 – 10:00 AM
Security for Everyone
EngineeringRoom 20225 seats left
- Sam Okafor (Security Engineer, Crescent Health)
The ten habits that stop most breaches, for engineers and everyone else.
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Raising Your First Round
LeadershipRoom 20130 seats left
- Mei Chen (Founding Partner, Levee Ventures)
What investors in the region look for, and how to prepare.
10:30 – 11:30 AM
Workshop: Design Critique Lab
ProductRoom 20312 seats left
- Camille Broussard (Design Director, Magnolia Bank)
Bring a screen you're working on and get structured feedback from peers.
12:00 – 1:00 PM
Farewell Lunch
Courtyard
One last lunch together in the Courtyard.
1:30 – 2:30 PM
Platform Engineering in Practice
EngineeringRoom 20225 seats left
- Tasha Robichaux (VP Engineering, Bayou Cloud)
- Andre Guidry (Principal Engineer, Gulfstream Energy)
Give product teams paved roads without slowing them down.
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Closing Panel: What's Next for Gulf Tech
Main Hall
- Marcus Hebert (VP Product, Pelican Labs)
- Priya Patel (Head of Data, Crescent Health)
- Camille Broussard (Design Director, Magnolia Bank)
4:00 – 4:30 PM
Prize Draw and Farewell
Main Hall
Game winners announced on the big screen, then safe travels home.
Speakers
Renée Fontenot
CTO, Riverbend Software
Renée has led engineering teams across the Gulf South for fifteen years.
Marcus Hebert
VP Product, Pelican Labs
Marcus builds products that people actually finish onboarding.
Priya Patel
Head of Data, Crescent Health
Priya turns hospital data into decisions.
Jordan Lee
Founder, Lagniappe Media
Jordan started three companies and sold two.
Camille Broussard
Design Director, Magnolia Bank
Camille makes banking software feel human.
Andre Guidry
Principal Engineer, Gulfstream Energy
Andre keeps critical systems running through hurricane season.
Tasha Robichaux
VP Engineering, Bayou Cloud
Tasha runs a platform team of forty and still reviews pull requests on Fridays.
Luis Navarro
ML Lead, Delta Analytics
Luis ships machine learning models that survive contact with real customers.
Grace Thibodeaux
Chief People Officer, Pelican Labs
Grace has built people teams at four startups from first hire to two hundred.
Sam Okafor
Security Engineer, Crescent Health
Sam protects patient data and teaches developers to think like attackers.
Mei Chen
Founding Partner, Levee Ventures
Mei invests in early-stage companies across the Gulf South.
Event Info
Getting There
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Hall J entrance on Convention Center Blvd.
- Garage parking is $20 a day at the Hall J garage.
- Free shuttles run from the French Quarter every 20 minutes from 7:30 AM.
- Rideshare drop-off is at the Hall J circle.
Our sponsors
Venue
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
900 Convention Center Blvd, New Orleans, LA 70130