FLX AI Hub Community Convening

Start the day with a continental breakfast and conversation with professionals from across the Finger Lakes. Take this opportunity to network with peers, share your experiences with AI, and get excited for a day of learning.

Keynote Address
Jen O’Brien  |  Director for Research and Innovation  |  American Marketing Association  |  LinkedIn

Jen leads original research on the current and future marketing landscape, drawing on expertise in design thinking, strategic foresight, and mixed-methods research. The keynote address will focus on AI’s impact on marketing and its broader implications across other industries.

AI 101: Getting Started with Everyday AI Tools
Adam Widera  |  Automated Systems & Technical Services Librarian  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Explore practical ways AI can support everyday tasks at work, school, and home. This beginner-friendly session introduces common AI capabilities, smart prompting basics, and strategies for getting useful results. Attendees will leave with the confidence to start experimenting with AI tools right away. No technical experience required.

Generating Movies, Music, and Images with AI
Paige LeBarr  |  Assistant Professor of Computing Sciences  |  FLCC

Discover how AI can help create original visual art, music, video, and multimedia content in minutes. Participants will learn about the strengths, limitations, and creative possibilities of modern generative AI tools through demonstrations and examples. The session will also explore the responsible and ethical use of AI-generated media. Attendees will leave with ideas and inspiration for their own creative projects.

Monitor and Improve Your Generative Search Visibility
Adam Heidebrink-Bruno  |  Digital Content Strategist  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

AI-generated answers are changing how people search for products, services, organizations, and expertise. For marketers, web content managers, and small business owners, this means your content needs to do more than rank in search results. It needs to be clear, credible, and useful enough to appear in AI-generated responses.

In this presentation, you’ll learn practical ways to improve your organization’s visibility in AI search tools and answer engines. We’ll cover how to review your current content, identify gaps that may limit AI visibility, and make targeted edits to make your pages easier to understand, summarize, and cite.

Facilitated Conversation: Follow-up to the Keynote
Jen O’Brien  |  Director for Research and Innovation  |  American Marketing Association  |  LinkedIn

Claude Cowork Can Organize Your Life 
Dave Ghidiu  |  Associate Professor of Computing Sciences  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Perhaps you’ve heard of Claude Cowork; it's a tool from Anthropic that is not your typical AI chatbot. It runs on your computer. It can organize your files, browse the web, and execute multi-step tasks. Anthropic’s Claude has been pushing the boundaries of what AI can do for you, and Claude Cowork is a fantastic step in the right direction! Come check out a Cowork demonstration and explore other pseudo-agential AI tools.

Chatbots: It’s Easier than You Think. Really.
Jeff Dugan  |  Assistant Director of Online Learning  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Learn how simple it can be to create your own chatbot for customer service, education, internal support, or community engagement. This session introduces the core concepts of conversational AI and demonstrates approachable ways to build useful chat experiences without advanced programming skills. Participants will explore examples, workflows, and design considerations for effective chatbots. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how to start building their own.

How to Get Better Results: Advanced Prompting Strategies
Dave Ghidiu  |  Associate Professor of Computing Sciences  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Join Dave and work through some potent prompting techniques. We’ll look at how to use metaprompting, panel-prompting, Socratic prompting, and a host of other high-end, eye-popping, jaw-dropping prompts that amplify what you do! We’ll also look at other paradigms (like Projects and Skills) that can save you time and lead to better results.

Seeing the Story: High-Impact Visuals and Infographics from Data
Debora Ortloff  |  Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Assessment  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Good data deserves good storytelling. In this session, participants will learn how AI can help transform spreadsheets, reports, and raw data into compelling visuals and easy-to-understand infographics. We will highlight two tools: ChatGPT and Claude. The workshop will cover strategies for identifying key insights, simplifying complex information, and communicating clearly to different audiences. Attendees will leave with practical ideas to make their data more engaging and actionable.

Facilitated Conversation: How to be an AI Leader
Jennifer Carney  |  Professor of Science and Technology  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

What does leadership look like in the age of AI? This facilitated discussion explores how leaders can guide teams through technological change while keeping people, ethics, and culture at the center. Participants will discuss opportunities, challenges, and practical strategies to build AI fluency across organizations and communities. Attendees will leave with ideas for leading thoughtful, responsible AI adoption.

During lunch, regional industry leaders will host a roundtable to discuss AI's impact on their work. Representatives from healthcare, agriculture, and other sectors will reflect on current economic trends and share emerging AI practices in their workplaces.

Finding Your AI Stack: Creative Uses of AI for Small Businesses
Katie Pullen  |  Owner  |  Katie Pullen: Allstate Insurance  |  LinkedIn

Small businesses can use AI in practical, affordable ways to save time, improve communication, and spark new ideas. This session explores creative workflows across marketing, customer engagement, operations, content creation, and everyday business tasks. Participants will learn how different AI tools can work together as part of a flexible “AI stack” tailored to their needs. Attendees will leave with actionable ideas they can begin testing immediately.

Vibe Coding: How to Build Apps Even if You Don’t Know Code
Dave Ghidiu  |  Associate Professor of Computing Sciences  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Got ideas for interactive elements on your website? How about a cool little game? Maybe you need a custom tool to make memes. Or a tool to create an animated GIF. Perhaps you need a tool to edit PDFs. Guess what? You can build it with AI! We’ll cover strategies for creating small apps you can use immediately!

From Information to Insight: Using AI to Build Better Materials & Presentations
Lindsey Chamberlain-Zeller  |  Executive Director of FLCC Association, Inc.  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Learn how AI can help transform complex information into clearer, more engaging communication materials. Participants will explore ways to summarize reports, organize presentation content, simplify data, and craft audience-friendly messaging. The session focuses on using AI as a collaborative thinking partner rather than a replacement for expertise. Attendees will leave with practical workflows to improve presentations and written materials.

Facilitated Conversation: Environmental Impact
Maura Sullivan  |  Professor of Environmental Conservation and Horticulture  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

AI technologies raise important questions about energy use, sustainability, infrastructure, and environmental impact. This facilitated conversation will explore current events, emerging concerns, and competing perspectives on AI’s environmental footprint. Participants will discuss topics ranging from data centers and energy consumption to responsible innovation and policy considerations. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of AI’s environmental dimensions.

Building your own Large Language Model: Set-up and Use Cases
Paul Engin  |  Professor of Visual and Performing Arts  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

Ever wondered what it takes to run your own large language model? This session covers the basics of setting up and working with local or custom AI models, including hardware requirements, open-source options, and real-world use cases. Participants will explore when running your own model makes sense and the trade-offs involved. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of the growing ecosystem beyond commercial AI platforms.

Smooth Sailing in a World of Headwinds and Undertows
Dave Ghidiu  |  Associate Professor of Computing Sciences  |  FLCC  |  LinkedIn

In this closing keynote, Dave Ghidiu—AI educator, strategist, and apologetic optimist—pulls back the lens to look at where we go from here. Not just next week, but next year, when we reconvene to compare notes on what we built, changed, and navigated together.

AI adoption doesn't fail because people lack tools or training. It fails because of opposing forces: headwinds and undertows. Two very different forces that shape how change actually moves through organizations and communities.

Headwinds? Everyone knows them. They're in the news, in the discourse, and in every LinkedIn post and dinner-table argument. "AI is being pushed on us. It's in our email, our browser, our spreadsheets—and nobody asked." Naming them is table stakes.

Undertows are different and rarer. They're the hidden forces moving beneath the surface, invisible to the casual observer but unmistakable once you know how to look. Spotting undertows is a skill that combines the AI landscape with your expertise, your domain, your hard-won experience, and a lifetime of introspection. It's what transforms AI from a trendy tool into a genuine force multiplier. It's also what keeps you from stepping on landmines others never saw coming.

Dave will challenge you to return to your organization and be bold. Go back and be experimental. Go back as someone who doesn't just follow the AI story but shapes it. Because the AI story in this region doesn't write itself.

It gets written by the people who were in this room.