The University of Indianapolis will host the inaugural AI Summit on April 9, aiming to bridge the gap between AI technology and its real-world applications.
“AI That Works for People, Organizations and Society” is the theme of this year’s summit, and according to UIndy President Tanuja Singh, that is what sets this summit apart from the typical AI event. Singh said that while the summit will feature extensive discussions on technology, the event’s main focus will be on how people use AI in the workplace to develop as humans.
“We’re not going to talk about how you build large language models. That’s not what most people need,” UIndy Assistant Professor of Business and AI Summit coordinator Vince Bertram said. “We need to know how to use [AI] in an applied way and how we can customize it to meet the needs we have, whether it’s in businesses, education or everyday life.”
According to Singh, the inaugural summit will host a variety of guests, including both business and government leaders, university presidents, students and staff. The summit will also feature partners from various industries like hospital systems and communication companies, targeting the event towards medium to small-sized organizations, according to Singh.
The AI Summit will feature two keynote speakers. One will be the Chief Executive Officer of Cognizant, Ravi Kumar S, who will speak on “AI that works for people, human judgement, leadership and empowerment at scale,” according to UIndy. Cognizant is “a $21 billion technology company with more than 350,000 employees, recognized for advancing large-scale AI adoption across many industries worldwide and named to the TIME100 AI 2025 list,” according to UIndy 360. The other keynote is Justina Nixon-Saintil, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility and Chief Impact Officer of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), who is in charge of “leading global initiatives to build an AI-prepared talent pipeline and advancing social innovation,” according to UIndy 360. Nixon-Saintil will focus on “moving from experimentation to impact through workforce readiness, leadership and responsible adoption,” according to UIndy.
“We [at UIndy] call ourselves the university that bridges the gap between the classroom and the real world, and this conference is really targeting that application-oriented mindset,” Singh said. “We are a university that prides itself on being innovative, looking at not just where we are today, but where we are headed.”
