Register online

Date and Location

In person at Statler Hall on the Ithaca Campus or virtually via Zoom on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, from 9am to 4pm. For onsite attendees, registration and coffee start at 8:30am.

Agenda

See the full agenda for the times, locations, and Zoom links for the day-long event. (campus login required)

Keynote Panel and Conversations

This fall, rather than focus on individual keynote speakers, Emerging Tech Dialogues is hosting to keynote discussions.

Future of the American University Faculty Panel

How will universities adapt to rapid technological, demographic, and societal change? Provost Kavita Bala will moderate a newly announced panel of Cornell faculty leaders as they discuss Cornell's long-term planning and direction. The conversation will highlight findings from Cornell's Committee on the Future of the American University and explore how Cornell is positioning itself to serve future generations while advancing its core missions in a changing higher education landscape. 

Attendees will gain insight into the strategic decisions, emerging technologies, and future challenges shaping teaching, research, and administration, while having an opportunity to engage directly with university leaders. Moderated by the Provost, this panel features all four co-chairs of the committee: Ariel Avgar (ILR School), Phoebe Sengers (Cornell Bowers CIS and Science & Technology Studies), Praveen Sethupathy (College of Veterinary Medicine), and Adam T. Smith (College of Arts and Sciences).

Keynote Conversation: Innovation and Adaptation at Cornell

Matt Marx, Vice Provost for Entrepreneurship, Thorsten Joachims, Vice Provost for AI Strategy, and other Cornell experts will explore the catalysts that drive innovation and adaptation, especially in long-standing institutions. Together, we'll examine how organizations with deep traditions can successfully embrace change and turn ideas into impact.

Breakout Sessions

Innovation starts with people, inventive problem-solving, and creativity--and the Information Technology at Cornell community is all that. Facilitated by your colleagues across units and locations, confirmed breakout topics include:

• AI-Assisted KB Article Management: Building a Production Utility with Claude - A Developer's Journey from Concept to Deployed Tool. This session describes the design, development, and deployment of a TypeScript command line utility that uses the Anthropic Claude AI API to analyze and rewrite KB articles stored in TeamDynamics, including evenly spreading out the next review dates of an owner’s KB articles. The development process itself is a demonstration of the tool’s subject matter: AI assisting human work. Just as the utility uses Claude to improve KB articles, the utility was built using Claude to improve development productivity. In both cases, the human remains in control – reviewing, directing, and approving each step. Facilitator: Anthony Jones.
• AI Showcase. A casual show-and-tell session featuring brief demonstrations and discussion from participants using AI in their daily work. Bring your own discoveries, learn from colleagues, and explore practical applications of AI across Cornell. Facilitated by Sylvie Honig.
• Evolving the IT Operating Model: Reimagining Strategy, Structure, and Flow. Our highly distributed, siloed IT structure hasn't fundamentally changed in well over two decades. Meanwhile, the tech landscape has transformed under our feet: virtualization, public cloud, zero-trust, and AI have rewritten the rules of IT delivery. Is it time to reimagine IT@Cornell’s operating model for today's environment? In this session, we’ll examine emerging industry frameworks designed to break down silos, eliminate friction, streamline service flow, and align our capabilities directly with the needs of the university. Facilitator: Sean Walsh.
• Future of Research Computing and Shared Environments (Evolve IT). How can Cornell help researchers find the right computing resources at the right time? Join a discussion about simplifying access to research services, improving connections to expertise, and addressing the challenges of authentication and shared computing environments across the university.Facilitators: Rich Knepper and Scott Yoest.
• Game Show: IT Security Trivia. The annual IT Security Trivia game began as a way to improve awareness each October during national cybersecurity awareness month. The goal is to bring people together around IT Security in a more fun than typical way. Facilitator: Tom Davko
• Marketing Cloud Playground: Learn, Explore, Connect. Curious about Cornell's new Salesforce Marketing Cloud environment but not sure where to start? Join a guided playground session designed for communications professionals and anyone who creates email communications as part of their role. Through demonstrations, discussion, and opportunities to explore the platform in a safe environment, you'll learn how colleagues are using standardized tools, discover practical tips for common communication workflows, and gain confidence navigating the new service. Bring your questions, share your experiences, and connect with others as Cornell continues its Marketing Cloud rollout. Facilitators: Carlyn Chatfield, Bridget McFadden, Cynthia Morel, and Vanessa Puig.
• Scaling in a Distributed Environment: Effects of Modular AV Control Logic and Universal User Interface on Cornell's Campus. Since 2024, Michael Broughton and Jeff MacDonald of the Video Engineering and Event Services team have been building a university-wide standard for AV system user interfaces and control logic that supports scalable AV system deployments for classroom and meeting spaces to the largest auditoriums. The interface standard was shaped through direct collaboration with AV managers and support staff across the university — building consensus where opinions aligned, and working through majority input and compromise where they didn't. Systems running the new standard programs have been rolling out across campus since early 2025, and the payoff has been consistency users can actually feel: familiar controls and predictable behavior from room to room, regardless of the underlying hardware. Rather than treating every room as a custom project, Broughton and MacDonald created two decoupled, independently scalable programs — a universal front-end UI/UX and hardware defined back-end control programs, which communicate over a defined API — an architecture built to scale across a wide range of room types without sacrificing the consistency users depend on. Facilitators: Michael Broughton, Ryan Engels, and Jeff McDonald.
• Wait, That Counts as Professional Development? Join Workforce Readiness for an IT Learning Exchange (Evolve IT). Discover current options for training, learning, and development. Help Cornell IT colleagues discover learning opportunities available to them and pick up practical ideas from one another. Facilitators: Beth Goelzer and Debra Howell.
• What Would Great Look Like? A Visioning Workshop for Cornell Endpoint and AV Services (Evolve IT). The IT service experience at Cornell means different things to a faculty member scrambling to fix a projector before class, a staff admin onboarding a new hire, and a student borrowing equipment for a project. In this interactive session, small groups will use real user scenarios to answer one question: what would a truly great experience look like? Your input will help shape the future of the Evolve IT client services and classroom technology projects. In-person participation may be limited due to space capacity but remote participation is welcome. Facilitators: Mike Baker, Erica Ellis, Josh Gerner, Laura Landphair, and Rob Michaels. 

Audience

Although Information Technology at Cornell hosts the event, the conversations are open to all Cornell community members interested in the topics or speakers. Previous participants with a range of backgrounds have joined in-person or via Zoom from many locations. Campus logins are required for the registration.

Registration

Register today for in-person attendance at Statler Hall on the Ithaca campus or to attend virtually via Zoom.

More details coming soon.