The first ever Tech Horizons Summit was successfully held on Friday, September 15, 2023, on the campus of the University Of South Florida.

The keynote presenter for this event was Jyotika Athavael, the 2023 incoming President of the IEEE Computer Society. Jyotika’s presentation covered the technology predictions that have been assembled by the Computer Society. She also took questions from the college students who attended the summit.

Link to Jyotika Athavael’s presentation

Dr. John Licato from the University of South Florida’s (USF) Computer Science department and the Advancing Machine and Human Reasoning (AMHR) Lab provided an presentation entitled “How Well Can AI Models Actually Reason?” During his presentation he talked about about the impact of AI tools such as #ChatGBT. Dr. Licato points out that although these tools a very good at some things, there are other things that they completely drop the ball doing. He explains why Large Language Models (LLMs) are good at certain tasks, but if we aren’t careful how they can become corrupted and fail at other tasks.

Link to Dr. John Licato’s presentation

Dr. Mohammad Reza from Florida Polytechnic University gave a talk about Empowering The Cybersecurity Workforce. In his talk, Dr. Reza provides an overview of how the academic program at Polytech has been enhanced to help create well-trained future #cybersecurity workers. Dr. Reza provides an overview of the current cybersecurity market and then talks about the cybersecurity tracks that are available at Polytech. He reviews the development of a cybersecurity lab at Polytech and discusses how students can use the lab to get a degree from Polytech.

Link to Dr. Mohammad Reza’s presentation

Dr. Mubarak Banisakher from Hillsborough Community College gave a talk about Building A New Career Pathway In Cloud Computing and AI. Dr. Banisakher provides an overview of his program to help students at the Hillsborough Community College (HCC) build a new career pathway in cloud computing and AI with the engagement of a Business Industry Leadership Team (BILT). Dr. Banisakher points out that there is currently a real need for more cloud computing / AI workers. He has reached out to local businesses to find out specifically what their needs are for future workers. He has created a Business Industry Leadership Team (BILT) made up of local employers to help HCC design a program that will provide students with the cloud computing skills that they will need to be successful. BILT members meet with students and provide them with direction.

Link to Dr. Mubarak Banisakher’s presentation