On March 11th, 2020 we met at Zero Motorcycles for our monthly Company Spotlight Breakfast (See pictures here). We knew that the event was going to be the last in person event before the first Shelter in Place, but little did we know that months later we would still be apart. It was a great event and one of our most well attended breakfasts with a larger than life video presentation followed by a talk and Q&A by CEO Sam Paschel. At 9:45 the last attendee left and the Santa Cruz Works team went into cleanup mode. Later that day we posted the announcement - Santa Cruz Works Suspends In-Person Events.

12 days later on April 1st Santa Cruz Works had our first virtual event, titled “Santa Cruz New Tech Goes Virtual”. We wondered if the community would join us? Well, you sure did. 285 attendees tuned in to watch talks from Zoom, Zendesk, Light & Motion, City of SC Econ Dev and more. From that point on we ramped up or events schedule. We even added new events such as our Flash Tours and CEO Works. We now average 4 events per month with over 50 events held in 2020. Here is a list of the top 10 attended events. Did you go to any of these? Which ones? Let us know in the comments below and tell us what you would like to see more of in 2021.

4th Annual Get Hired & UCSC IDEA Pitch Contest

Guy Kawasaki's Fireside Chat with UCSC Coronavirus Team

Santa Cruz New Tech Goes Virtual

The Future of Education

The 4th Annual Titans of Tech

Design Thinking

Santa Cruz Works Green Tech

Santa Cruz Startups

2020 Santa Cruz Biotech Startups

Nir Eyal’s Indistractable

Ride Out The Wave with Keith Greeninger

Over 6,000 of you heard Keith Greeninger play as the sun set - and even more of you bought gift cards. Man, did you buy gift cards. More than 7,000 purchases happened during the event and another 5,000 came in over the next three days supporting local businesses.