Her central point is that a sister city relationship is one tool for international engagement that has served the city well. It opens doors and builds familiarity between two places, allowing for in-country familiarization and exchange. Investment, when it comes, tends to arrive years later and is not necessarily related to a sister city. The sister city engagement creates a foundation upon which intercultural skills grow, with cultural exchanges that help build long term relationships based on trust.

We see these relationships as a normal part of how a large city operates. San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the US, with about 1.53 million residents, according to the Census Bureau’s May 2026 estimates. Dowlatshahi’s office sits within Economic Development, and the city’s trade and investment strategy guides where it focuses its efforts. The relationships themselves reach further, into culture, education, youth programs and technical exchange. We close with events over the next three weeks where these ties show up in person.

Photo courtesy of Sister Cities International, from the SCI All-Americas Summit.

Where Sister Cities Came From

Twin town partnerships began in Europe after World War II, when cities on opposing sides needed a way to rebuild contact, according to an EBSCO research overview. In the US, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established Sister Cities International in 1956. Dowlatshahi noted that Europeans still say twinning, while US cities say sister cities.

The organization now reports more than 400 member communities and over 1,800 partnerships in more than 140 countries. Members are cities, not individuals, and annual dues scale with population, from $190 for the smallest US communities to $2,280 for those with one million residents or more. San Antonio is a member and gets event discounts and access to toolkits. Dowlatshahi said city-to-city partnerships are agreed between the cities themselves, and not dependent on membership in Sister Cities International, but the organization serves to provide resources and support to cities in order to enhance those relationships even more.

Sister Cities and Friendship Cities

Cities use the term friendship city in different ways, she said. San Antonio’s process runs in steps. It usually starts with contact and collaboration, sometimes an MOU. A friendship city agreement comes next. The two mayors sign it; it does not go to city council, and it can cover one topic or a few. The city’s website describes these agreements as a way to explore a partnership before making a formal one.

A sister city agreement is broader and meant to last. The mayors sign it, then the city council approves it by ordinance.

Who San Antonio Partners With

The city lists 13 sister cities: Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Querétaro in Mexico; Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands; Gwangju in South Korea; Kaohsiung in Taiwan; Kumamoto in Japan; Chennai in India; Windhoek in Namibia; Darmstadt in Germany; and Baguio in the Philippines. The newest are Baguio (2022) and Querétaro and Lanzarote (both 2025).

Dowlatshahi said Baguio reflects San Antonio’s large Filipino American community. Two university agreements have followed. The clearest economic link she sees there is nurse exchange and talent development.

There are four friendship cities: Amman, Tel Aviv, Mexico City and Quebec City. Exchanges with Amman and Tel Aviv have mostly covered municipal practice, such as smart city work and rapid transit. Quebec City is the one the city hopes to move up to sister city status. The link began with World Heritage work: the Organization of World Heritage Cities is headquartered in Quebec City, and San Antonio is a member.

Two partnerships in China ended in 2025. HB 128, effective September 1, 2025, bars Texas governmental entities from keeping sister city agreements with China, Iran, North Korea or Russia and required withdrawal by October 1, 2025. San Antonio withdrew from Wuxi and Suzhou. The section expires January 1, 2027, and Dowlatshahi said the city does not know whether lawmakers will try to renew it.

What the Partnerships Have Produced

Returns tend to come slowly and in unexpected places, Dowlatshahi said. She gave three examples.

Toyota’s San Antonio investment came about two decades after the city’s sister city relationship with Kumamoto began in 1987. Toyota is not based in Kumamoto. What those years built, she said, was familiarity: regular mayoral and chamber of commerce trips to Japan, and a group of local business leaders who learned how to work with Japanese partners.

Sanko is a more recent case. City staff first visited the Japanese plastics manufacturer in November 2018, on a trip to Japan with then-mayor Ron Nirenberg. Sanko broke ground on its San Antonio plant, next to Toyota, on February 2, 2026, TPR reported. That is 8 years from first contact to breaking ground.

Blackwave moved faster. Former Mayor Nirenberg and Dowlatshahi met the German aerospace manufacturer in Munich in the summer of 2024 with the help of the US Consulate in Munich and its US Commercial Service representation, on a trip built around a visit to Darmstadt. Two years later, on June 29, 2026, the company announced its first US factory at Port San Antonio, with about 250 jobs expected over time.

Darmstadt’s strongest results so far are in education and research, she said. The link between UT San Antonio and Darmstadt’s technical university covers engineering, cybersecurity and science. No major foreign direct investment has followed yet. A partner city, in her view, is a way into a country. The city goes where the opportunity is, as it did in Munich.

The Asian partnerships followed a different path. Ties with Kumamoto and Kaohsiung had mostly meant student and cultural exchange. Both cities now host TSMC semiconductor plants, and she said that has opened economic possibilities that did not exist before.

How the City Sets Priorities

San Antonio’s trade and investment strategy names priority markets. South Korea, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and Germany have been on the list since 2015. A recent data refresh kept those five, and the city widened the list to ten by adding Australia, the United Kingdom, Spain, Singapore, and Taiwan. Enterprise Singapore, that country’s trade agency, has opened an office in Austin. The city’s target industries are biomedical and health care, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, financial services and aerospace. Other important criteria are the work carried out by the San Antonio International Airport to build direct international flights and grow those destinations, as well as the countries where Visit San Antonio has identified as a key source of international tourism to San Antonio.

The city uses that list to decide where to spend its time. Dowlatshahi said she would rather have productive relationships than more sister cities. For a city of San Antonio’s size, we think that is the right measure: fewer partnerships, kept active.

The work runs across four areas: business and trade, arts and culture, youth and education, and technical exchange. Youth Orchestras of San Antonio sends 2 or 3 high school students each year to Darmstadt to play in an orchestra drawn from its sister cities, and five groups have gone so far. The Contemporary at Blue Star sends 4 artists a year on three-month residencies in Berlin, and now includes short stays in Darmstadt to engage with their artist community. For the last two years, sports diplomacy has featured in a major way between the two cities through the professional soccer teams, which signed an MOU in 2024. Dowlatshahi also counts international students at our higher education institutions as an export, tourism through visiting groups and delegations and the hotel occupancy tax it generates, and talent attraction as economic development.

What Each Priority Market Offers San Antonio

Below is what the five newer markets, plus Canada, one of the original five, could bring to San Antonio. Where Dowlatshahi named a reason, we say so. The rest comes from public sources.

Australia. Dowlatshahi said Australia and Spain both already have investments in Texas, and the work is to keep building those relationships. Australian companies employ about 19,000 people in Texas, about the same as in California, according to the Australian embassy. That is an existing base to reach. San Antonio can make its case on the industries the city targets: cybersecurity, biomedical, advanced manufacturing and aerospace.

United Kingdom. The clearest San Antonio link is JCB, the British equipment maker. It is building a $500 million plant on a 400-acre site in San Antonio, the largest investment in its 80-year history, with 1,500 jobs expected, JCB says. Hiring was set to start in late 2025 and production in mid-2026. Dowlatshahi said she expects JCB to draw more UK investment. The state numbers point the same way: the UK is the top source of foreign direct investment projects into Texas, with 323 projects, $10.6 billion in capital and more than 19,365 jobs from 2016 to 2025, the Texas Governor’s Office reports.

Spain. Texas and Spain traded $10.1 billion in 2024, including $8.4 billion in Texas exports, and Spanish companies had 71 investment projects in Texas between 2015 and 2024, worth more than $5.2 billion and 4,030 jobs, according to the Governor’s Office. San Antonio’s own tie to Spain is older. Canary Islanders arrived here on March 9, 1731, and the city now has three Canary Islands sister cities: Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Lanzarote, the city says. That gives San Antonio a cultural entry point to a country whose companies already invest in Texas.

Singapore. Enterprise Singapore, the country’s trade agency, opened an Austin office on April 14, 2026, its first outside the coastal US hubs and its fourth center in the US, to give Singapore companies access to the central US market, it announced. Its focus is technology, advanced manufacturing and energy, and Texas was Singapore’s second-largest state trading partner in 2025, with goods trade near US$9 billion, Hoodline reported. San Antonio already has a Singapore employer. ST Engineering has run an aircraft maintenance operation here since 2002, with about 1,000 employees as of 2022, Asian Aviation reported, and it announced in March 2025 that it would consolidate US maintenance work in Pensacola and San Antonio, Aviation Week reported. Dowlatshahi said the city is engaging more with Singapore and hopes the Austin office brings more delegations to San Antonio.

Taiwan. In August 2025, the mayor hosted Taiwanese manufacturers, including Foxconn, and said the city was ready to partner on advanced manufacturing, especially electric vehicles and drones, the San Antonio Current reported. In March 2026, she led a delegation to Taiwan that met TSMC, and Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister discussed cybersecurity, drone technology and advanced manufacturing with the group, TPR reported. The city’s pitch rests on its military presence, cybersecurity and bioscience industries, research institutions and manufacturing momentum from Toyota and Sanko, the San Antonio Report reported. Taiwanese companies disclosed about $5.3 billion in planned investment in Texas in 2025, including GlobalWafers’ $7.5 billion total commitment in Sherman and AI server plans from Foxconn, Inventec, Wistron and Pegatron, according to the Dallas Fed. Kaohsiung, a San Antonio sister city, is also a party to the three-city startup agreement described below.

Canada. Texas and Canada traded $76.1 billion in 2024, making Canada Texas’s second-largest trading partner, and Canadian companies had 149 investment projects in Texas over the past decade, worth $10.4 billion and more than 14,250 jobs, the Governor’s Office reports. Dowlatshahi called Canada an important trading partner and said the city needs to be intentional about it. San Antonio signed a friendship city agreement with Quebec City in 2025. The city’s page lists Quebec City’s main industries as smart and green technology, life sciences, aerospace and healthcare, which line up with San Antonio’s biomedical and aerospace targets, the city says.

Where Our Members and Community Leaders Can Take Part

The city opens the door. Mayors sign the agreements, delegations visit, and city staff arrange the meetings for delegations coming through the City. On trade missions led by the City or in support of a community business organization, the city works with the local US embassy and the US Commercial Service, organizes a San Antonio pitch where relevant, and meets with chambers of commerce. After that, the relationships run through local organizations and residents. Dowlatshahi said only Chennai and Baguio have dedicated sister city groups. For the other partners, the city takes a project based approach, works with local organizations and/or diaspora communities, and calls on them as needs arise. That leaves room for more of us to take part.

These are the openings we see that fit an innovation council.

Startups. Kaohsiung and Kumamoto both have city-funded startup organizations, and both have shown interest in Geekdom and Launch SA. The mayors of San Antonio, Kumamoto and Kaohsiung signed a startup agreement during a trade mission to Taiwan with Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, and Kaohsiung and Kumamoto have since signed a second one between their own startup organizations. A Kumamoto delegation visited Geekdom on its most recent trip. Dowlatshahi also said conversations are underway about connecting Geekdom with Hub 31, Darmstadt’s technology and founders center. The city’s Economic Development Department does not run a startup program, so San Antonio’s startup organizations are the natural partners.

Semiconductors and advanced manufacturing. TSMC is building a second fab in Kumamoto with a $13.9 billion investment, planned to make 6-nanometer chips, with production expected by the end of 2027, TechNode reported. In Gwangju, a program launched in September 2025 applies AI vision inspection, autonomous robots, and predictive maintenance in auto plants, with 28.7 billion won planned through 2028, the Seoul Economic Daily reported. Closer to home, Blackwave expects to be operational this fall and to hire more than 30 people by the end of the year.

Cybersecurity, space, and research. Darmstadt is home to the European Space Operations Centre, Merck’s headquarters, and ATHENE, a national cybersecurity research center with more than 550 scientists, according to the city’s tourism office. ATHENE also runs a digital hub that supports cybersecurity startups. Dowlatshahi said cybersecurity has been one of the main areas of the two past San Antonio Hispanic Chamber trade missions to Israel.

Health and talent. The Baguio partnership points to nurse exchange and talent development, and international students who study at San Antonio higher education institutions are part of the same picture.

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Where to Connect Over the Next Three Weeks

Also on the calendar, in date order:

Saturday, September 26. The World Affairs Council of San Antonio hosts Around the World 2026 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the Alamo Colleges ACCESS Campus, 2222 N. Alamo St. The event page says more than 40 countries are represented in San Antonio, with country booths and cultural experiences, so it is a look at the diaspora communities the city works with. Tickets are $10 for students, educators, military and first responders, and other pricing is on the event page. Sponsors can contact Armen@wacofsa.org, and groups that want to host a country table can contact Miranda@wacofsa.org.

Tuesday, September 29. SV Darmstadt 98, the soccer club from our sister city, plays San Antonio FC at 7:30 PM at Toyota Field. The club is in San Antonio from September 25 to October 1 for meetings with San Antonio FC, Spurs Sports and Entertainment, and UTSA, and a Darmstadt business delegation led by Mayor Hanno Benz is here from September 27 to October 1, according to the event announcement. The City’s Economic Development Department has a block of discounted Section 123 tickets for community partners, first come, first served.

Wednesday, September 30. The LatinTech Pitch runs from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Texas Public Radio, presented with the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest. Five finalists from Latino-led startups across Texas pitch live for $110,000 in prizes and mentorship. Tel Aviv is one of San Antonio’s four friendship cities. The same day, Emerge and Rise is hosting Darmstadt B2B matchmaking. If you are interested in partnership or further collaboration, contact lina@emergeandrise.org.

Friday, October 2. The National Security Forum in San Antonio: Advancements in Japanese Technologies. The Consulate-General of Japan in Houston and the Japan America Society of San Antonio present it, in collaboration with the City of San Antonio and the Japan External Trade Organization. Consul General Takeshi Koyama gives opening remarks, and Professor Takahiro Tsuchiya of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies speaks on the Japan-US security alliance. A second session brings presentations from NEC on its NeoFace facial recognition technology and from Rigaku on Icon-X, a handheld analyzer built to identify chemical threats. Seating is limited, and registration is not open to the public. If you want to attend, reach out to lina@emergeandrise.org.

Thursday, October 15. The Multinational Connector Evening in Austin runs from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at Opportunity Austin, 200 W. 6th St. It is hosted by EACC Texas, the World Affairs Council of Austin, Austin Sister Cities International, Opportunity Austin and the Austin Technology Council. It is free for members of the participating organizations and $25 for non-members. Austin’s sister city organization is one of the hosts, which makes it a chance to see how a neighboring city brings its community in.

This conversation is part of SAAIC’s work on mutual collaboration for our growing community.

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Yesterday, on August 11, twenty decision-makers gathered at VelocityTX for something San Antonio has needed for a long time: an honest working session about the city’s economic future.

The room included leaders from city and county government, economic development, bioscience, higher education, law, venture capital, defense technology, entrepreneurship, chambers of commerce, and community organizations. They arrived representing different parts of San Antonio, but they came to address many of the same challenges.

There were no formal presentations. After a short welcome, we went directly to work. A facilitator guided two hours of structured discussions focused on what San Antonio has accomplished, what continues to hold the city back, and what local leaders can do together.

It was the first meeting of the San Antonio Applied Innovation Council. It will not be the last.

What We Built Together

The first exercise asked participants to identify what San Antonio has accomplished during the past five years. The responses quickly filled the room.

San Antonio has made more economic progress than many people realize, and certainly more than the city receives credit for.

Supply SA launched a direct procurement pipeline connecting local businesses with the City of San Antonio, Bexar County, SAWS, VIA, and Port San Antonio. This is more than a short-term pilot. It is a working system supported by people who are helping local companies understand and compete for public contracts.

The bioscience sector expanded workforce development programs that connect life sciences employers with trained workers coming out of local colleges and universities.

Ready to Work has enrolled 16,883 people in training programs. Of those participants, 8,062 have completed training, and 5,762 have been placed in approved jobs. The program has nearly doubled its total job placements in 2026 alone.

That progress matters, even as the program faces questions about its future. Ready to Work is now working toward a revised goal of 15,600 total job placements by 2030. Behind those numbers are San Antonio residents pursuing new careers, higher wages, and greater economic stability for their families.

The program has also reached a crossroads. With the city facing a reported $158 million budget deficit, the mayor has proposed asking voters to end Ready to Work early and use its remaining funds to help address the shortfall. That discussion is still underway, and the outcome has not been decided.

Whatever happens to the program, the workforce network it helped create will remain important. Training institutions have expanded their programs. Employers have formed new relationships with workforce partners. Residents have entered career pathways that did not previously exist. The question now is who will continue that work and how San Antonio will protect the momentum it has built.

Manufacturing has also continued to grow. Correction (8/20/26): Toyota committed to a $3.6 billion expansion in San Antonio, bringing a projected 2,000 new jobs to a sector that has long been one of the city’s strengths.

Project 1835 advanced. Trinity University received a Nasdaq Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence, bringing national attention to San Antonio’s university-based entrepreneurship work.

The Texas Fast Track manufacturing training program, operated through Bexar County, demonstrated that employers and workforce partners can prepare people for manufacturing careers in weeks rather than years.

The Steinberg Startup Pitch Competition gave early-stage founders an opportunity to present their companies, receive feedback, and connect with potential supporters.

VelocityTX expanded its role in bioscience and defense technology by signing the Defense Health Agency and welcoming Valion Bio and Velocity Bioworks. Those developments strengthened San Antonio’s position in military medicine, biomanufacturing, and health-related research.

The San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce continued connecting local businesses with contracts, programs, information, and new opportunities as the economic environment changed.

These wins are real, and many are documented within the organizations responsible for them. What San Antonio has not done well is bring those separate accomplishments together and communicate them as part of one larger story.

The work has moved forward, but the public story has not kept pace.

The Story San Antonio is Not Telling

Participants said one of San Antonio’s biggest challenges is not a lack of progress. It is a lack of public awareness about that progress.

Good news from economic development organizations, businesses, universities, and research institutions often struggles to gain media attention. Important projects move forward, but the public may hear little about them.

At the same time, coverage of San Antonio news frequently centers on political disagreements, city budget problems, delayed projects, and conflict at City Hall. Those stories have an audience, and public officials should be held accountable, but that coverage does not represent everything happening in the city.

An incomplete public image can have economic consequences.

Corporate site selectors read local news. International investors read it. Companies considering San Antonio as a new market read it. Business leaders use those stories to form an early opinion of the city before they schedule a visit or speak with an economic development representative.

When the most visible headline concerns a budget deficit or political dispute, while major manufacturing investments and Defense Health Agency partnerships receive less attention, some companies may simply move on to the next city.

San Antonio may be losing opportunities it never knew it was considered for because the city’s public image does not fully match its economic activity.

Participants agreed that this needs to change.

The group discussed the idea of a journalists’ summit and a coordinated effort to place more economic development stories in front of local, regional, and national media. The goal would not be to hide problems or replace reporting with promotional language. It would be to make sure reporters and the public have access to specific, useful stories about the work happening across San Antonio.

Press releases alone are not enough. Many disappear into crowded inboxes. Participants said the city needs stronger stories about actual investments, jobs, research, workforce programs, business growth, and partnerships. Those stories should be told by the people doing the work and supported by facts that reporters can verify.

Several industries represented at the session committed to producing at least one article about their work before December. The bioscience sector offered to help coordinate that effort.

The potential reach is significant. If twenty organizations each contribute ten credible stories over time, San Antonio would have two hundred new examples of local progress in the public record.

Those stories could cover workforce development, manufacturing investment, bioscience growth, technology, research, entrepreneurship, public contracting, and partnerships between government and private industry. Together, they could give companies and investors in Germany, Japan, New York, and other markets more reasons to take a closer look at San Antonio.

Art, music, and culture also came up during the discussion. Participants said these sectors are often left out of conversations about economic development, even though they help companies judge whether a city can attract and retain talented workers.

San Antonio has a strong creative economy. Its cultural identity is one of the city’s greatest assets. That story should be part of how San Antonio presents itself to workers, companies, investors, and visitors.

A city competing for talent and investment has to explain who it is, what it offers, and where it is going.

The Volcano

Every city has frustrations that people discuss in hallways but hesitate to raise when decision-makers are in the room.

The Council put those frustrations on a whiteboard.

Participants were given five minutes to identify barriers that keep San Antonio from reaching its potential. The board filled quickly.

One issue appeared repeatedly: San Antonio produces plans, studies, and recommendations but does not always follow through on them. Reports are completed, announced, and then placed on shelves without clear responsibility for implementation.

Participants also pointed to programs and resources that exist but remain difficult for businesses and residents to find. Help may be available, but people often have to know the right person or organization before they can access it.

The group discussed the absence of one clear message about San Antonio for outside companies and investors. Economic development organizations often work beside one another instead of through one coordinated system.

Other concerns included initiatives that begin without a clear owner, projects that lose momentum after their public launch, and investment capital that leaves the region instead of being reinvested in local companies.

The purpose of the exercise was not to spend the session complaining. It was to name the barriers clearly enough that the group could begin addressing them.

San Antonio has capable people, established institutions, growing industries, and valuable public assets. The challenge is creating a structure that helps those resources work together and ensures that decisions lead to action.

The Council was created to test whether a consistent group of local leaders can provide some of that structure. The first session did not solve every problem, but it allowed participants to discuss issues that are often acknowledged privately and avoided publicly.

Where the Wins Connect to the Gaps

The next exercise compared San Antonio’s recent accomplishments with the barriers identified by the group.

The discussion pointed to a practical conclusion. Many of San Antonio’s gaps are not caused by a lack of talent, infrastructure, or ambition. They are caused by weak coordination, limited public visibility, and inconsistent access to capital.

Those problems are difficult, but they are within the community’s ability to address.

On funding, participants said venture capital remains underused in San Antonio. Local grants can be difficult to find because information is spread across different organizations and websites. Growing companies sometimes leave the region because the money they need is not available at the right stage of development.

The group did not call for another new program. Instead, participants discussed connecting the capital networks that already exist, recruiting more angel investors to the region, and making it easier for investors to understand what local companies are producing.

A company should not have to leave San Antonio simply because it cannot find its next round of funding here.

On business recruitment and connection, participants identified another problem: there is no single front door for a company entering the San Antonio market.

greater:SATX works on business attraction and regional growth. Emerge and Rise operates a Soft Landing Program for companies arriving from outside the region. Supply SA connects businesses with public procurement opportunities. VelocityTX support bioscience and defense technology companies. Universities, chambers of commerce, government agencies, and industry groups offer additional programs.

Each organization provides something valuable, but the services are not connected in a way that gives an incoming company a clear path.

A business arriving in San Antonio should be able to understand where to begin, which organizations serve its industry, what funding may be available, how to find employees, and who can help it enter the local market.

The Council’s multi-sector strategy map is intended to make that process easier. The map will be published on sanantonioinnovates.com and will show how programs, industries, institutions, and opportunities connect.

On innovation and public visibility, participants said San Antonio’s researchers, technologists, founders, investors, and industry leaders need more regular opportunities to meet and test ideas.

The institutions and talent are already here. What is missing is a reliable way for people working in different parts of the economy to find one another, understand what each group is building, and decide where cooperation makes sense.

What We Are Building Toward

One of the most active parts of the session was a three-year vision exercise.

Participants were asked to describe what meaningful progress could look like in 2027, 2028, and 2029. The ideas were ambitious, but they reflected projects and industries already moving forward in San Antonio.

By 2027, the group wants to see a stronger public-private partnership helping carry out the SA Tomorrow revitalization plans. Participants also discussed BioFest Days as a way to bring national investors and industry attention to San Antonio’s bioscience sector.

The group wants to see progress on Port San Antonio’s air taxi infrastructure and more places that can support companies through different stages of development. San Antonio has programs for people with early ideas, but fewer resources are available after a company has formed, found customers, and begun preparing for larger growth.

By 2028, participants want San Antonio to be in a stronger position to attract major corporate headquarters. They also want the Texas Fast Track manufacturing training model to expand to other cities across the state.

The vision included more community activities that place STEM education in the hands of young people through organizations such as SAMSAT. Participants also called for a serious angel-investing network that gives local companies a better chance to find funding without leaving San Antonio.

By 2029, the group expects major projects such as the Spurs arena and Sports and Entertainment District to be part of a downtown that is active, walkable, and welcoming throughout the week.

The larger goal is a city whose public image reflects what residents, institutions, and industries have actually built.

These ideas are not formal promises. They represent what twenty people from different sectors said they are willing to work toward.

Some of the people and organizations represented in the room have the experience, resources, relationships, or public authority to move parts of this vision forward. The Council’s task is to turn the strongest ideas into shared priorities with clear responsibility and measurable progress.

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What Happens Now

Every participating industry left the first session with an assignment: produce at least one article about its work in San Antonio before December.

The purpose is to place more accurate information about San Antonio’s progress into the public conversation. A coordinated and sustained effort will have more impact than isolated announcements from individual organizations.

Council will begin building the multi-sector strategy map on sanantonioinnovates.com using the information produced during the August 11 session.

The map will be public, specific, and updated after each Council meeting. It will identify local industries, programs, institutions, resources, gaps, and opportunities for cooperation.

The Council will meet again in December 2026. During that session, members will review and finalize the first version of the strategy map and select three priorities that the Council will take responsibility for in 2027.

The December session will continue the work started in August. Participants will return with articles, updates, and additional information from their industries.

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Want To Be Part Of This?

San Antonio already has strong industries, skilled workers, experienced business owners, public institutions, research organizations, and universities.

What it needs is a regular and trusted setting where people from those sectors can speak honestly, coordinate their work, and follow through on shared priorities.

Founding membership closes September 15, 2026. The first four months are waived. Before membership fees begin, founding members will have attended a Council session and had an opportunity to see what the group produces.

The Council is seeking decision-makers from manufacturing, bioscience, healthcare, defense, cybersecurity, technology, research, public infrastructure, higher education, workforce development, venture capital, finance, economic development, law, arts and culture, small business, and entrepreneurship.

Those interested in participating can apply or learn more at sanantonioinnovates.com.

Share SA Applied Innovation Council

The San Antonio Applied Innovation Council is powered by Emerge and Rise, a nonprofit Venture Development Organization headquartered in San Antonio.

Council leadership: Dr. Lina Rugova, DBA, Operations Chair. Christine Colburn, Engagement Chair. Danielle Littleton Larish, MBA, MA, LSSBB, Membership Chair. Joyce Deuley, Founding Member.

A lot is happening in San Antonio’s economic development world, and we’re excited to be part of the bigger picture.

As many of you know, in March, Mayor Jones announced the Mayor’s Economic Security Advisory Group, known as ESAG, chaired by Jim Perschbach of Port San Antonio and made up of leaders from SwRI, VelocityTX, Texas Biomed, and several defense and biotech companies. Its mandate is to advise the Mayor on how San Antonio can compete in artificial intelligence, quantum technology, biotechnology, and space manufacturing.

Today, the San Antonio Report broke news about the Central Texas Alliance, a newly formed coalition led by former greater:SATX CEO Jenna Saucedo-Herrera and Henry Cisneros. The Alliance is built around the Austin-San Antonio corridor and a 13-county mega region of 5.3 million people projected to grow by 3 million more by 2050. Its focus areas include transportation, water, housing, workforce, energy, healthcare, and land planning. It launches officially on September 18 at Texas State University-San Marcos.

Both of these are serious efforts by serious people. San Antonio needs both of them, and likely more, if it wants to stay competitive. The honest challenge is that these efforts still largely operate in separate lanes.

However, the San Antonio Applied Innovation Council is neither of those things [ESAG or CTA], and it was not built to be. The Council was built around the belief that the people doing the work across sectors need to be in the same room, regularly, before any of the bigger strategies can actually land.

What the Council actually does

ESAG advises the Mayor. The Central Texas Alliance advocates at the state and federal levels on behalf of a 13-county region. Both operate at scale, working on big structural questions over long time horizons.

The Council works at ground level, inside the room, with the people actually running companies, departments, and programs in San Antonio’s four core sectors: industrial and advanced manufacturing, defense and cybersecurity, biomedical and health innovation, and applied technology and talent.

Our job is not to advise the government or form a regional consensus. Our job is to get decision-makers from those sectors in the same room, map where they are actually operating, find where they are running into the same walls, and commit to working on something specific together.

That is a different function. It fills a different gap. And frankly, it feeds into the work that ESAG and the Central Texas Alliance are doing, because those larger bodies need to know what is happening at the company and program level to make good recommendations at the policy and advocacy level.

August 11 at VelocityTX

We hold our first working session on August 11 from 9 to 11 AM at VelocityTX on San Antonio’s East Side - thank you for hosting us.

We have 10 confirmed people in the room, of no more than 16. We have 4 to 6 seats remaining (a few pending). Please reply with your interest if you represent any of the sectors.

The session has three goals. First, we will hear from each sector represented in the room: what is working, what is not, and what each person is actually watching right now. Second, we will build the first draft of the Council’s multi-sector strategy map together, using what surfaces in that conversation. Third, we will agree on three priorities for 2027 that the group will carry forward.

We are not representing all four sectors yet. We are still making rounds and having conversations. That is honest, and it is intentional. The founding cohort should be the right people, not the fastest to say yes, or coming in at the end and say they were part of this…

The strategy map will be completed and formally revealed at the Q4 2026 session before the end of this year. What gets built in the room on August 11 shapes everything that follows.

Why this moment matters

The Austin-San Antonio corridor is the fastest growing region in the fastest growing state in the country. The corridor’s population of 5.3 million is expected to add 3 million more residents by 2050. San Antonio alone added more than 38,000 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, the ninth-highest numeric gain in the country.

That growth creates demand, and demand creates opportunity. But opportunity does not distribute itself. It goes where people are coordinated, where sectors talk to each other, where a company looking to grow or expand can find partners, talent, and clarity about what a city has to offer and what it actually needs.

San Antonio has the assets. JBSA is the largest joint military installation in the Department of Defense. UTSA’s cybersecurity program ranks in the top five nationally. Texas Biomed operates as one of the few biosafety level 4 research facilities in the world. The health and biosciences sector contributes an estimated $44 billion to the regional economy. The Alamo Colleges District enrolled a record 87,757 learners in Fall 2025.

What the city has historically lacked is a private-sector mechanism that moves faster than a task force and cuts across sectors. That is what we are building.

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If you want one of the remaining seats

Founding membership is open through September 30, 2026. All founding cohort members receive a six-month fee waiver covering both Q3 and Q4 sessions before any payment is required. Reach out through sanantonioinnovates.com.

If you are not in the room, paid subscribers will receive a full read-out of what was discussed after August 11, including the questions that came up, where the group landed, and what members are watching heading into Q4.

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Powered by Emerge and Rise, Inc. San Antonio, TX. sanantonioinnovates.com

4.1% doesn’t tell the whole story. And we keep pretending it does.

Every month, Workforce Solutions Alamo releases labor data. Every month, local newsletters and economic development releases point to a headline number and call it a picture of health. This month, it was 4.1% unemployment in the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA, below the Texas average, matching the national average.

That number is not wrong. It is just incomplete in ways that matter.

The unemployment rate, technically called U-3, only counts people who have recently lost a job and are actively looking for another one. It was never designed to capture the full scope of labor demand in a growing city. And San Antonio is growing in ways that make this limitation much more significant than it might be somewhere else.

What 4.1% doesn’t count

The civilian labor force in our metro grew by 5,688 people in a single month, from April to May 2026. Over the year, it grew by 6,687. During that same year, the region added 4,800 net new jobs, a 0.4% growth rate.

Read those two numbers together. Labor supply went up. Job creation barely moved.

The people that number misses include recent graduates entering the market for the first time, workers who were fired but don’t qualify for unemployment benefits, people who voluntarily left jobs and are now searching, residents who relocated here from elsewhere, and workers who gave up looking and stopped counting altogether. That last group, what economists call discouraged workers, disappears from the official rate entirely.

As someone who works for a higher education institution, I know those numbers don’t paint a real picture, and I hear a lot from my students!

The broader U-6 measure, which adds underemployment and people marginally attached to the labor force, runs consistently higher. Nationally, the gap between U-3 and U-6 was 2.6 percentage points in 2024. San Antonio does not publish a local U-6 figure. That itself is worth noting.

The graduate pressure is real and growing

UT San Antonio produced more than 7,750 graduates in the 2024-2025 academic year, a 6% increase over the year before. In spring 2025 alone, over 4,800 UTSA students entered the workforce, including 3,850 undergraduates, 870 master’s students, and nearly 90 doctoral students.

The Alamo Colleges District celebrated over 15,000 degrees and certificates awarded in the 2025-2026 academic year, across five campuses, with record enrollment of 87,757 learners in Fall 2025, up 12.1% from the year before. greater:SATX’s MOMENTUM:2030 strategy has set a goal to add 25,000 newly credentialed residents to the talent pool per year.

That is not a problem. That is exactly what a growing city should want. But it creates an obligation, which is that job creation has to keep pace. Right now it is not.

And people keep moving here

The San Antonio metro added more than 38,000 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, the ninth-highest numeric gain in the country. Between 2020 and 2024, the metro added nearly 205,000 people, with 59% coming from domestic migration. The city’s population is now estimated at around 1.5 million, with the metro approaching 2.6 million.

People are choosing San Antonio. That is the good news. The harder question is whether the economy is ready to employ them at the level they came here expecting.

The jobs being created are not the ones graduates need

In May 2026, the sectors losing jobs in San Antonio were Private Education and Health Services and Professional and Business Services. The sectors gaining jobs were Leisure and Hospitality, Construction, Government, Trade, and Transportation and Utilities.

This matters because the distribution of job growth does not match the distribution of degrees being earned. A city producing thousands of business, engineering, cybersecurity, and health sciences graduates per year needs private sector professional jobs to absorb them. When those are the exact sectors shrinking, we have a mismatch, and no headline unemployment rate will show it.

What the innovation community has to do differently

San Antonio has a habit of measuring itself against itself. We compare this month to last month, this year to last year, and declare progress when the number moves in the right direction. But a growing city with a growing workforce needs to be measuring something harder: whether the economy we are building can actually employ the people who are here and the ones on their way.

That means a few things for this community specifically.

1. Stop treating announcements as outcomes. Toyota, Microsoft, and others have announced investments here. A local org’s newsletter notes that the question is whether those jobs will materialize fast enough. That is the right question. Announcements are not jobs. Groundbreaking ceremonies are not jobs. The gap between a press release and an actual position filled is where San Antonio consistently loses the thread.

2. Connect workforce development to job creation, not just education. The region’s higher education institutions are doing their part. UTSA has 85% graduate retention in San Antonio post-graduation. Alamo Colleges is enrolling at record numbers. greater:SATX is targeting 45% regional educational attainment by 2030. The credential pipeline is working. The employer pipeline has to match it.

3. The innovation economy has a talent absorption problem, not just a talent pipeline problem. The conversation in San Antonio’s tech and entrepreneurship circles tends to focus on producing more skilled workers. But if skilled workers graduate and cannot find professional work here, they leave, or they underemploy. That is not a workforce development failure. It is an economic development failure.

4. Local anchors have a role to play. Large employers like USAA, H-E-B, Valero, and the military complex employ a significant portion of the professional workforce in this city. Startups and small businesses employ many more. When the innovation community talks about economic growth, it needs to include how these anchors are growing, hiring, and creating pathways, and whether small businesses are getting the support they need to scale into real employers rather than staying solo operations.

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What we are watching

The MOMENTUM:2030 initiative is promising because it is trying to align education and employer needs simultaneously. That alignment is exactly what is missing from the standard economic development conversation in San Antonio.

The real test will be whether job creation in professional and business services recovers and whether incoming investment announcements translate into posted positions within 18 to 24 months. If they do not, the headline unemployment rate will stay low while the actual experience of trying to build a career or hire for one in San Antonio gets harder.

We will keep tracking it.

This newsletter is free to read and always will be. If you want to go deeper, a paid subscription includes a summary of what gets discussed at the Council's quarterly roundtables, the questions that came up, where the room landed, and what members are watching next. It's the part of the conversation that doesn't make it into any press release. You can upgrade below.

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The San Antonio Applied Innovation Council (SAAIC) connects the people building San Antonio’s innovation economy. Learn more at sanantonioinnovates.com.

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We are taking a San Antonio business delegation to the Futura Innovation Conference in Limerick, Ireland, from October 18 to 23, 2026. A few company spots remain and applications close July 10.

This is not a tourism trip. It is a working delegation representing San Antonio on an international stage alongside companies and institutions from 15+ countries. Futura draws 1,500+ attendees across technology, cybersecurity, manufacturing, academia, and innovation sectors. It is one of the most active innovation conferences in Europe, and it happens to have deep ties to the same network that brought us to the table.

We are specifically looking for companies in:

• Technology and applied AI

• Cybersecurity and defense-adjacent sectors

• Advanced manufacturing

• Academia and research institutions

Two participation tiers:

Conference and Reception — $2,500 Includes conference registration for October 19 to 21 and the official delegation reception. You cover your own travel and accommodation.

All Inclusive — $5,500 Airfare, hotel, conference registration, diners, and the delegation reception. Everything handled. You show up.

Three San Antonio companies are already committed. We have room for a few more, and we are being selective about who comes. This delegation represents San Antonio as a city, not just individual businesses, so fit matters.

Applications close July 10. No extensions.

Learn more and apply at emergeandrise.org/ireland-delegation-trip-2026.

This delegation is organized by Emerge and Rise, Inc., a nonprofit Venture Development Organization headquartered in San Antonio. Questions: lina@emergeandrise.org

Most of it is well-intentioned. Some of it has produced real results. But if you have been building a business in this city for any length of time, you already know the pattern. The right people get in the room. Everyone agrees something needs to happen. The meeting ends. Nothing moves, and we have lots of these studies and reports sitting in our office!

That is not a San Antonio problem. That is a structural problem.

The data is not the issue

San Antonio’s economic fundamentals are strong. The gross metropolitan product reached $192.8 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $210 billion by 2026. The region ranks among the top five U.S. cities for job creation. Office space runs 42% below Austin. The military anchor economy at Joint Base San Antonio creates a recession-resistant demand floor that most markets cannot offer.

The industries are here. Manufacturing, defense and cybersecurity, biomedical and health innovation, applied technology, and workforce development. Each one is real. Each one is growing.

The problem is not the assets. The problem is the connective tissue between them.

San Antonio’s sectors operate largely in parallel. Companies are building. Institutions are investing. Talent is developing. But the connections between them are inconsistent, slow, and dependent on who happens to know who. A manufacturing company that needs a cybersecurity partner should not have to spend six months finding the right room to walk into. A company relocating from Columbia or even California should not have to start from scratch building relationships that took others a decade to develop.

Facts do not make introductions. Data does not open procurement doors. People do.

What we built and why

At Emerge and Rise, we have spent five years working alongside small and mid-size businesses in San Antonio. We have seen what moves and what stalls. We have watched companies with real potential lose time, momentum, and opportunity because the right connection came too late or not at all, oh… and don’t get us started with all they [San Antonio] want is a free service.

So we stopped waiting for the right room to exist and built it.

The San Antonio Applied Innovation Council is a private-sector working group. Invitation only. Quarterly sessions. Structured around companies that are actively operating in or entering the San Antonio market. Members bring specific challenges tied to growth, operations, or market access. Other members engage directly to identify solutions, align resources, and move toward execution.

This is not a networking event. It is not a panel discussion. It is not prescriptive. We are not here to tell companies how to grow or what to prioritize. We are here to put the right people in the same room and make sure something actually happens after the meeting ends.

That last part matters as much as the first. Emerge and Rise serves as the operational backbone of the Council, which means we track commitments, facilitate follow-through, and make sure the momentum from each session carries into the next one. The room is only useful if it produces outcomes beyond itself.

Who this is for

The Council focuses on four interconnected areas of the regional economy: industrial and advanced manufacturing, defense and cybersecurity, biomedical and health innovation, and applied technology and workforce development. These are not separate silos. They are part of a system that requires coordination to scale.

Membership is structured across three tiers. Founding Members are the advisors and connectors helping shape the Council from the ground up. Anchor Institutions are corporations, utilities, hospitals, and institutions with procurement authority and resources to commit. Growth Members are small and mid-size businesses operating in or entering the San Antonio market.

If you are building something in this city, considering bringing your company here, or are positioned to open doors for others, this room was built with you in mind.

A note to the skeptics

We know what some of you are thinking. San Antonio has had a lot of rooms. A lot of councils. A lot of working groups that looked promising and quietly faded. We know, we’ve been there, we’ve seen it, and heard it!

We thought about that when we designed this. The Council is not advisory. It is not a membership organization built around monthly mixers and a newsletter. It is not run by a committee that votes on recommendations that go nowhere.

It is a working group with a specific structure, a specific purpose, and an organization committed to following through. The proof will be in what it produces, and we are ready to be held to that.

What comes next

The Council is now open. We are accepting inquiries from companies and institutions that want to be part of the founding cohort of members and advisors.

If you are curious, explore the full site at sanantonioinnovates.com. If you are ready to be considered, submit a membership inquiry, and the Emerge and Rise team will follow up directly.

San Antonio does not need another initiative. It needs a structure that makes it easier for companies to grow, partner, and operate more effectively. That is what we built.

The San Antonio Applied Innovation Council is powered by Emerge and Rise, Inc., a nonprofit Venture Development Organization headquartered in San Antonio and Korevia Advisory Group.

Council leadership includes:

Dr. Lina Rugova, DBA, Founder and President of Emerge and Rise and Operations Chair of the Council. Christine Colburn, VP of Community and Strategic Initiatives at Emerge and Rise and Engagement Chair of the Council. Danielle Littleton Larish, MBA, MA, LSSBB, VP, Tech Transfer & Commercialization - AV and Board Member of Emerge and Rise, serving as Membership Chair. Joyce Deuley, Strategic Innovation Advisor at Team b. Strategy+ and Founding Member of the Council.