Celecart Hosts NY Tech Week 2026 at NYU’s Kimmel Center

Celecart, the AI-enabled celebrity commerce platform, hosted its official NY Tech Week 2026 event on Friday, June 5 at New York University’s Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South. Presented by a16z, the four-hour evening filled the hall past four hundred with founders, investors, NYU faculty and the people who dress them. NYU opened the Kimmel Center and lent Stern School of Business faculty to two of the three panels.

Celecart founder and CEO Zulqadar Rehman opened the room, setting out the thesis behind the platform: celebrity commerce built on verified storefronts and an AI styling engine, with the fan at the center of the transaction rather than the end of it. Celecart advisor Michaella Connolly co-hosted and ran the podium for the evening. Renata Merino, who runs an accelerator and works with a network of LPs, delivered the keynote.

The program

Panel I — The Future of Fashion, Entertainment & Marketing. Moderated by Simi Shah, Founder of South Asian Trailblazer, with Prof. Thomaï Serdari (Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern), Prof. Paul Hardart (Distinguished Clinical Professor, NYU Stern), fashion and beauty consultant Basma Elmogy, and designer and entrepreneur Faraz Zaidi. The question was whether marketing still leads fashion or follows it; the answer, four ways, was that the creator now sits between the two.

Panel II — Culture, Music & the Diaspora. Moderated by Joshua Griffen, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, with musician and songwriter Momina Mustehsan; Salman Ahmad of Junoon and the Salman and Samina Global Wellness Initiative; Dr. Sadaf Jaffer, former New Jersey Assemblywoman and Princeton lecturer; and Obioma Richardson, Founder of Watch Her Win NY.

Panel III — AI. Moderated by Prof. Arun Sundararajan, Harold Price Professor at NYU Stern, with Prof. Anat Lechner (Clinical Professor of Management, NYU Stern), Mike Marrone (Director, AI Pre-Sale & BD, C3 AI), Shawn Jean (Senior Executive, Premier Business Value, Cisco) and Alcir Candido Goncalves (Business AI Specialist, Meta).

Asked about the years she stepped back from the noise, Momina Mustehsan called it intentional silence — not a retreat, but something she owed to herself, paid on her own schedule. In a room built around reach and velocity, it was the most-quoted line of the night.

The mics went down at seven and the room turned into the part everyone had come for: a happy hour at Kimmel where the hallway conversations outlasted the panels. Salman Ahmad left signed copies of his memoir, Rock & Roll Jihad, with the hosts.

The event marked Celecart’s first public appearance as a company and opened a summer of brand and creator conversations ahead of the platform’s launch. Celecart thanks NYU and NYU Stern School of Business for hosting, a16z for presenting, and NY Tech Week for the platform. The full photo essay is published in CELE No. 15, “The Tech Week Issue.”