Artificial intelligence, building diverse businesses and connecting entrepreneurs with investors will be major themes at the 2023 Denver Startup Week, organizers say, as they enter the final weeks before the September event brings thousands to downtown.

It begins Monday.

The event — co-founded by Erik Mitisek, Tami Door and Ben Deda — is free and focused on gathering the entrepreneurial community in downtown Denver for idea sharing, mentorship and capital sourcing. The week kicks off on Sept. 18 and wraps up on Sept. 22.

The event is organized by a committee of volunteers and the Downtown Denver Partnership. Sessions are chosen in part with feedback from the entrepreneurial community, which is asked to vote on ideas in the months before Denver Startup Week.

Come showtime, attendees can pick from 200 sessions that fall within eight “tracks,” customizing their experience to their specific startup niche or role within their business.

“That’s the magic of startup week,” Mitisek said.

The week concludes with the Physical Product Showcase event. The makers of physical products from a wide array of industries can show off their work and talk about their process with other inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, manufacturers, consultants and investors.

Organizers hope attendance this year will keep inching closer to pre-pandemic levels, with close to 15,000 people expected to participate. That’s up from the 10,000 who came last year, the first in-person Denver Startup Week since the pandemic hit. Attendance could have reached 20,000, if not for COViD-19.

Mitisek, a five-time founder himself, said  he knows what entrepreneurs face in launching a startup, calling it the hardest job in the world.

“I’m a founder’s founder,” he said.

Denver Startup Week is his favorite time of year, focused on amplifying the stories on Denver startups and putting local entrepreneurs on the map. Overarching 2023 themes are broad-based, collaborative inclusiveness, he said.

The event is driven by entrepreneur feedback, for entrepreneurs, he said, which is how subthemes emerged.

Artificial intelligence — starting AI businesses, using it as a tool in any type of startup, and its risks — will be a dominant issue this year. Attendees will notice that topic woven into nearly every session and permeating the week, co-chairs said.

Startup community members are intrigued by the advantages AI can offer, particularly in terms of boosting productivity, profitability and innovation, while staying alert to uncertainties, Mitisek and Door said.

“There are a lot of philosophical negatives that I think we are grappling with, and Denver Startup Week will be a great forum” for discussing how Colorado can become a leader in managing AI as a tool, Mitisek said.

Door said sessions will help entrepreneurs weigh how to “lead in a world where AI begins to play such a role across so much of what they are doing inside their companies” — from services to support.

Another theme incorporated into the event because of high demand will be diversity and DEI, Mitisek said, particularly as it relates to building emerging companies and businesses in their growth stage.

“And how to be highly inclusive and successful in growing your business,” he said.

The week will also spotlight emerging economies in the state, such as clean energy and energy, and “how Colorado can be at the epicenter of the next energy wave,” he said.

“Startup Week is always that kind of emerging arena for new industries in our state,” he said, nodding to cannabis, blockchain and tech sectors as past examples. “It always seems to be that place, where those topics emerge.”

There will be an entire day dedicated to venture capital and investments, catering to entrepreneurs who want to understand how venture capital works and how to attain it.

“We’re really focused on connecting founders with investors this year,” he said.

Seeing aspiring entrepreneurs sit down with a seasoned professional and sharing knowledge are what Door most looks forward to about startup week. The mentorship often becomes the push someone needed to start their business, she said.

“I mean, the energy is incredible, and the ideas start flowing,” she said.

Denver has to create an environment that attracts entrepreneurs and businesses from elsewhere, she said. Although 95% of attendees were from Colorado last year, representatives from 41 countries attended Denver Startup Week. Some years have seen participants from well more than 40 states, and one year had representation from all 50.

Holding the event in Denver’s downtown, a district that historically serves as a place where diverse professional backgrounds converge and interact, will further perpetuate that sharing of ideas, said Door, who previously served as president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership.

The 2023 event comes amid turbulent economic times for the nation, with still-high inflation, recent debate about looming recessions and a Colorado job market that appears to have more jobs than bodies to fill them.

Mitisek and Door would both tell entrepreneurs nervous about the economic picture that a good idea, is a good idea. If they can fill a niche, they’ll be able to secure capital and launch, even in rocky economic times, they said.

“When you think about some of the chapters when the best companies in the U.S. were built — Uber or Airbnb, for example — they were built during the last significant economic downturn and recession,” Mitisek said.

To register, and see a schedule of events, visit denverstartupweek.org.