AI summit attracts students with an eye to the future
At Richmond’s Data + AI Summit, students and professionals map out where tech might take them.
By Susie Burtch
“It’s scary the first time,” confesses Anna Nguyen (B.S. ’27) as she stands amid the 500 participants of the seventh annual rvatech/ Data + AI Summit on March 19. While Nguyen is surely one of the youngest in attendance, the conference has been designed for those with a wide range of technological expertise.
Just a year ahead at VCU, Nahisha Ashraf (B.S. ’26) has already found her footing. “I’m searching for an internship or full-time job,” she announces.
In fact, these two students exemplify the future envisioned by morning keynote speaker Ankit Mathur. Currently the chief technology officer at United Network for Organ Sharing, Mathur (B.S. ‘03; M.B.A. ’12; M.S. ’13) was last year’s VCU School of Business spring commencement speaker. “Share the learning,” he exhorted his AI audience. “It’s a daunting task to be young today and determine where and what is your future. But progress is never linear. No matter which way you go, just go forward.”
Ways to go forward
The Richmond Technology Council, along with myriad business sponsors, designed the full-day program to provide ample opportunities. “Trailblazer” talks explored groundbreaking technologies, while “Level Up” speakers offered advice on sharpening skills with hands-on learning. “Compass” presenters spoke of crafting winning AI strategies, while “Scaling” speakers tackled engineering challenges.
Abbey Berloco (M.D.A. ’25) was excited by Tamarah Usher’s presentation on redefining creativity in the AI era. As a data analyst for Weinstein Properties, she says she was encouraged to learn that a data analyst would most likely not be replaced by a machine. “It really opened my eyes to the wider scope of AI,” she said. “I liked seeing how much humans and technology can interact to achieve a creative end product.”
Optimism carries the day
Jon Krohn, well known as an industry leader and host of the SuperDataScience podcast, wrapped up as the afternoon keynote speaker. Continuing the conference’s underlying theme of using AI for good, he reminded his audience, “The problem is not to measure how well machines can duplicate humans, but what they should do to enrich humans’ cognitive environment. …It’s never been a better time to develop AI products.”
“As a bit of an older student,” muses John Lipp (M.D.A. ’25), “the biggest thing for me was that you really have to make an effort to stay current, because by next week, it will all be obsolete. So, my takeaway is that it was exciting to see how many people were there, continually educating themselves.”
How AI Works For Good
“Unfortunately, I can’t get my Mac to connect with Dropbox.”
“Thankfully, Mac does not connect with Dropbox.”
Those two innocuous sentences are key. Dr. Ugochukwu Etudo, assistant professor, Information Systems, presented a session entitled “Relations with an Attitude: Valenced, Intra-Sentence Relation Extraction.” The talk was decidedly technical, but even without a knowledge of Etudo’s buzzwords, participants could grasp the danger of examining content without context.
Does the writer believe Mac not connecting with Dropbox a good thing or a bad thing? And to extrapolate: how can AI differentiate philosophy from facts in its search for nefarious ideology on the web?