We’re diving even deeper into the future of artificial intelligence and its transformative impact on a variety of industries. And because our November event was overbooked with standing room only, we will meet at the Cocoanut Grove where half of Santa Cruz can attend.

Program

As is our custom, we will open doors at 6pm. There will be appetizers, beverages (for sale), networking, live music, and an armada of demo tables from local businesses, UCSC research teams, and of course, our favorites: MERGE4 and Ventana Surfboards & Supplies. It is not too late for you to get a demo table. Go to Sponsors Networker.

At 7pm, we will welcome you with:

• Doug Erickson / LeBaron Meyers - will use ChatGPT to predict the future for Joby, Paystand, CruzFoam and other local companies as we accelerate into 2024.

• Leilani Gilpin - this demo will include some groundbreaking AI projects from UCSC.

• Rich Taylor / Seek AI - a demo of how AI can help anyone talk to data.

• Craig Gieringer / Massed Compute - this demo highlights Massed Compute's role, as an Nvidia Cloud Service Provider partner, to empower founders, innovators, AI/ML engineers, students and academics to develop AI offers and solutions. 

• David Dennis / Microsoft - a demo of how to use Microsoft’s AI products to launch the perfect marketing campaign.

At 7:30pm, we will kick off a Fireside Chat with:

• Drew Meyer - moderator; this Santa Cruz Works board member will moderate a discussion with academic, venture capital, and private sector AI leaders. When he's not facilitating expert conversations, Drew leads Developer Marketing at Amazon Alexa.

• Craig Vachon - CEO of AI Redefined and author of "The Knucklehead of Silicon Valley," is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and advisor. He has raised over $1.6 billion in investments across seven countries and founded the Chowdahead Growth Fund. His leadership at AI Redefined marks a key phase in the company's development in human-AI collaboration technology.

• Sasha Ostojic - a Venture Partner at Playground Global, specializes in AI, computing, automation, and robotics. He brings extensive experience in scaling companies and engineering teams. His career includes pioneering work at GE and IBM, founding and leading Ultimate Technology, Inc, and contributing significantly to Nvidia's success in gaming, AI, and data center technologies. Ostojic also holds several key roles, including independent director at Allison Transmission Holdings, and board member at Anari Ai and D-Matrix Corp.

• Leilani Gilpin - Leilani H. Gilpin is an Assistant Professor in the Department ofComputer Science and Engineering at UC Santa Cruz.  Her research focuses on the design and analysis of methods for autonomous systems to explain themselves.  Her work has applications to robust decision-making, system debugging, and accountability.  Her current work examines how generative models can be used in iterative XAI stress testing.

Interested in tabling?

If you are a SCW partner, please email Malina to let her know you would like to table Malina(at)santacruzworks.org. If you are not a current partner, go to Sponsors Networker.