First DevHouse Room

The night

Timeline

First Room ran 7–9 PM officially. The artifact below follows the night in order — narrative, projects, and all 103 photos from Jeff White.

1. 7:00 PM

   Doors open

   Builders arrived with laptops, prototypes, and work in progress. No stage. No pitch deck requirement. Stations went live as people found the room.

2. 7:30 PM

   Room fills

   It felt like the room had reached capacity within the first hour. Featured builders drew a crowd — then people drifted toward whatever project pulled them in.

3. 8:00 PM

   Stations stay live

   Demos, hardware, apparel, music tech, and side conversations ran in parallel. Most of the night happened in motion.

4. 9:00 PM

   Official close

   The clock hit 9. The room did not empty. Builders kept talking, showing work, and making introductions.

5. 9:30 PM+

   Past close

   Conversations continued. Collisions turned into follow-ups. The first DevHouse room ran longer than planned — because the room was working.

The room · act I

Doors open

Photos 2–35 · builders arriving, stations coming online, room filling up.

Doors open · 7 PM

Most of the night happened in motion.

On the floor

What was in the room

• AI product demos and live laptops
• Grocery automation and cloud security walkthroughs
• Live apparel creation — sewing machine on the floor
• Music tech and DJ station — Willow Sound Co.
• Vintage Apple II — conversation starter at center table
• Student pipeline projects and nonprofit missions in motion
• Hardware, notebooks, and WIP everywhere

The room · act II

Room in motion

Room in motion, then welcome remarks — Ben opening DevHouse, Joanna hosting, Nathan from gener8tor speaking, the full room gathered.

Room in motion

Notes, collisions, and side conversations.

Ben Tankersley · DevHouse founder — opening the first room.

Ben Tankersley · DevHouse founder — welcome remarks.

Ben Tankersley · DevHouse founder — opening the first room.

Founders, mentors, students, and ecosystem partners in the room.

Welcome & remarks

The room filled fast. Stations stayed live all night.

Joanna White · Apollo Coalition — welcoming the room.

Nathan Stewart · gener8tor — speaking to the room.

Nathan Stewart · gener8tor — welcome remarks.

Collisions in conversation — Apollo Coalition.

Why it mattered

• Builders shared real work in progress — demos, laptops, hardware, apparel, music tech.
• Conversations formed around projects. Friendships started in motion.
• People stayed past 9 PM. The room did not empty when the clock hit closing time.

Builder stations

Projects represented

• Riff Labs

  AI product demo station — Hunter Wittenborn

• Cartana

  Grocery automation walkthrough — Cabril DeAbreu

• vul.ninja

  Cloud security & compliance — Rob James

• Paperplay

  Builder project WIP — Phillip Hasha

• Praxis

  Student ↔ job market bridge — Samuel Meinshausen

• AgTech + AI

  Farmer alerts from satellite & climate data — J. Langley

• Ape Outfitters

  Live apparel creation — Evan Brock

• Prove It

  Identity-based accountability — Joshua Price

• AI-assisted resale

  Workflow tooling for vintage resell — Matthew Burns

• AI Reps

  Digital personhood & civic systems — Michael Robbins

• Live room soundtrack

  Music tech & maker station — Dillon Spicer

The room

Builders in the room

29 named builders documented from First Room. More than 40 attended in total — founders, students, mentors, makers, and ecosystem partners.

• Ben Tankersley

  DevHouse founder

• Brandon Heng

  Student builder

• Byron

  Creative builder

• Cabril DeAbreu

  Founder · mobile automation

  Station · Cartana

• Chase Morrow

  Builder

• Darron Jennings

  Builder

• Dillon Spicer

  Maker · creative tech

  Station · Live room soundtrack

• Evan Brock

  Apparel · live creation

  Station · Ape Outfitters

• Hunter Wittenborn

  AI · music tech

  Station · Riff Labs

• J. Langley

  AgTech · climate data

  Station · AgTech + AI

• Jason Nunnelley

  Builder

• Jeff White

  First Room photographer

• Jim Troglen

  DEPLOY

• Joanna White

  Apollo Coalition · official host

• Jordan Strickland

  Student · indie dev

• Joshua Price

  Student leadership

  Station · Prove It

• Joy

  Founder · operator

• Justin Brown

  R&D · Sentar

• Karlie Sikorski

  AI · creative technologist

• Larry Nicholas

  CEO · ELS-Tec Group · AgTech

• Marianne Whitehead

  DEPLOY · ecosystem connector

• Matthew Burns

  Creative entrepreneur

  Station · AI-assisted resale

• Michael Robbins

  Civic tech · spatial computing

  Station · AI Reps

• Michelle Kloske

  UAH SBDC · APEX Accelerator

• Phillip Hasha

  Indie builder

  Station · Paperplay

• Rob James

  Cloud security founder

  Station · vul.ninja

• Samuel Meinshausen

  Student founder · UAH

  Station · Praxis

• Trey Kinkennon

  Student builder

• Victoria Ross

  Founder · SaaS

Collisions

What the room created

• Founders met mentors without a formal program — they found each other through projects.
• Students sat next to working CTOs and indie builders at the same table.
• Creative builders (music, apparel, photography) collided with AI and hardware.
• Nonprofit missions and startup demos shared the same floor.
• People stayed because the work was real — not because the schedule said so.

Room composition

Who was in the room

• AI / Software18
• Hardware / Maker7
• Creative / Music6
• Student pipeline8
• Ecosystem / support5
• AgTech / climate3

The room · act III

Past close

After welcome — side conversations, stations, and energy past 9 PM.

Past close · after 9 PM

Apollo Coalition · MidCity District · Huntsville

From the room

Quotes

• “Communities like DevHouse are an important part of helping entrepreneurs turn ideas into reality. Every event, meeting, and connection has the potential to open a new door, challenge an assumption, or spark an idea that changes your direction.”

  Larry Nicholas · CEO, ELS-Tec Group · First Room

• “What struck us most was the genuine willingness of everyone to share, collaborate and lift each other up. That's the Huntsville spirit right there.”

  Marianne Whitehead · DEPLOY · First Room

• “Nice, I'm downloading every single one man. Gonna look back on this and remember how amazing it was. Crazy start man.”

  Hunter Wittenborn · Riff Labs · First Room

• “Last night was the first DevHouse meetup, and it was one of those events that makes you excited about where our city is headed. There wasn't a sense of competition. Everyone genuinely wanted to help each other build. Looking around the room, it hit me that this is what an entrepreneurial ecosystem actually looks like. It's not just startups. It's founders, mentors, students, organizations, and people investing in one another.”

  Joshua Price · Prove It · First Room

• “One of the most encouraging parts of the evening was seeing students, founders, mentors, and community leaders all in the same room, investing in one another. That's how strong entrepreneurial ecosystems are built.”

  Entrepreneurship Club at UAH · First Room

Host & partners

Who made the room possible

• Apollo Coalition

  Official host · MidCity District

  The room. The venue that made First Room possible.

• Jeff White Photography

  Event photographer

  105 photos documenting the full night — doors open through past close.

• UAH College of Business · SBDC

  Ecosystem partner

  Mentors and ecosystem builders in the room — founders, students, and support orgs side by side.

• DEPLOY

  Ecosystem partner

  Marianne Whitehead and Jim Troglen in the room — connecting builders with opportunities.

Lessons learned

What we'd tell the next room

• –Featured builders create gravity; stations create collisions.
• –Personal outreach outperformed automated messaging before night one.
• –The room works when people show work — not when they show slides.
• –A packed room needs motion, not a stage.