Artificial Intelligence Savvy College Students Introduce New Skills to Business Professionals at Hartford AI Day

Sophomore Samarth Gupta In ’26 I stood in front of a room full of business leaders. Hartford AI Day And explained why artificial intelligence can dramatically improve everyday life.

MIT has developed ICU Intervention, which predicts which treatment will be most effective for critically ill patients, he said. PayPal Cyber ​​Security uses AI to analyze transactions to prevent fraud. And Amazon is using image detection to support a ‘smart store’, which eliminates the need to wait in checkout lines.

Gupta, a computer science and engineering major, is a student leader in the School of Business. Modern labswhich encourages students to experiment with a variety of emerging technologies, from drones to virtual reality.

But Wednesday he was also an instructor, demonstrating a passion for data and AI that will likely make him an attractive candidate for future employers.

“When I think about AI, I get scared and excited at the same time,” Gupta said after her presentation with fellow sophomores. Anthony Pryor. “AI, like everything else, is the unknown, scary, and people are worried about its impact on jobs. But this AI day was a great opportunity to meet and learn from others. I want to be a part of it. I think seeing It’s interesting to see where we’re going as a civilization.”

AI-Savvy college students are entering the workforce with a distinct advantage.

Jon Moore, executive director of the School of Business’ Connecticut Information Technology Institute Digital Frontiers Initiative, was bursting with pride when he saw the presentations given by his students, followed by a large number of professionals. As a faculty member, Moore has been instrumental in creating Innovate Labs that introduce students to emerging technologies.

“These students are very knowledgeable, bright, thoughtful and inquisitive,” Moore said. “They’re really going to shape the future of technology and business.”

Students coming into this new field are not competing with people who have done it for 25 years, Moore said. He said that their future is practically unlimited.

The Digital Frontiers Initiative (DFI) offers research, partnerships and workforce development for companies.

About 20 companies approached Moore and DFI’s academic director. Wei Chen At Wednesday’s conference, looking for advice, partnerships, research, or more information. “We were eager to co-sponsor AI Day and get the word out to companies about how we can help them,” Moore said.

“There’s just incredible demand. People love to see what our students are learning,” Moore said, adding that he expects the emerging technology to soon be part of every high school and college curriculum. Will be a part.

“In the industry, it’s moving very fast. This conference was very helpful because we learned more about the challenges that companies face,” he said.

Chen, who like Moore is part of the operations and information management department in the school of business, said he expects to see dramatic changes this year in image recognition, workflow, and video generation. He often hears concerns about how AI will affect the workplace.

“I don’t think there’s any industry that won’t be affected,” Chen said. “Some jobs will change, but new jobs will be created,” he said, noting that there were no air traffic controllers or gene editors until innovation gave rise to these features.

At UConn, faculty are creating an AI course for business graduate students, which will begin next semester. They are also expanding Innovate Labs, currently only in stores, to campuses in Stamford and eventually Hartford.

Students introduce business leaders to chatbots.

After the presentation by Gupta, sophomore Race Mocino ’26 and freshmen Sofia Hatties ’27 taught business professionals how to use machine learning to build chatbots. They showed each participant how to take photos of themselves with smiling, frowning, and surprised expressions, and then trained a computer model to recognize the facial expressions.

Chris SandersA lead developer at Insurity said building his own chatbot was a lot of fun and a good introduction to AI, which he wants to learn more about.

About 370 people attended Hartford AI Day Wednesday at the School of Business’ Graduate Business Learning Center in downtown Hartford. Now in its third year, the event drew record attendance from industry experts, business leaders and students.

Sponsored by Launch[H]artford and Capgemini, the event attracted speakers from Otis Elevator, Hartford Healthcare, and a number of businesses in the insurance and financial sector.

“We designed Hartford AI Day to create an environment for learning, strengthening our community and inspiration,” said. Michelle CoteDirector at Launch[H] And one of the organizers of the event. “This year we saw the energy of everyone involved reach a whole new level. It was remarkable to witness the peer mentoring, exchange of insights and collaboration throughout the day.”

Other keynote speakers included alumni. Pete CenaFounder of Digital Surgeons, Dean O’KeefeCommissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, and Paul Drennansenior vice president and chief data science officer at The Hartford.

‘Challenges we can solve’

Graduate student Geeta Sri ’24, who will graduate in May with a master’s degree in business analytics and project management, was thrilled to attend the event. She is interested in retail and e-commerce.

“It was a great event and I enjoyed building the skills. I’m excited about the business implications and the challenges we can solve,” he said. Going through the details, they are looking for employees who are familiar with AI. Even without extensive experience, you already have an advantage.”

He said his fellow graduate students are excited about the future, many of whom are eager to apply artificial intelligence to insurance and financial services.

“For me, I think data is interesting and I want to use it to recommend the right products and tailor things to customer needs.”