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The annual theme for TechBBQ helps to create meaning at the summit, whilst also sending a message to our community. This year is about the transition from theory to practice. “Emerging” represents the rise of new infrastructures and global orders. “Agency” is the capacity to act, the power of the founder to steer momentum rather than just react to it. It’s about moving beyond the automated to the intentional.
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The fabric of technology expands by the minute, heightening and extending our capabilities. AI matures by the day, compounding across industries like life sciences and fintech with sharper tools and deeper reach. Quantum physics, robotics, physical AI, and computation blur boundaries and remove hurdles. As the stack reconfigures, technology shifts from what it could be to what it is, with hurdles to entry decreasing.
The systems we’ve long operated within are being reshuffled. The global order is being redefined. Technology has become one of the ultimate frontiers of diplomacy. Democracies are being stress tested. The promise of automation, wielded by increasingly powerful agents, raises deeper, more existential questions. At the intersection of all these forces, new governing values rise.
Founders sit at the helm of the emerging systems, not just reacting to momentum, but steering it. Their agency fuels the unfolding of reality while mediating the future. In times of reorganization, they are building tomorrow’s defining companies through grit, clarity, and speed.
In one of the most extraordinary moments for technology, we’re also reminded how building can appear linear, brought by the promise of agents and automation. However, while the agentic era may be defined by tools, it must not be limited by them. Founders must inspect the nodes, challenge the defaults, and go beyond the flow. Human agency must sit at the operational core of both innovation and society, where judgment becomes leverage.
Ultimately, in an increasingly intricate landscape, our own agency is a Founder's moat.