2025 AITP Technology Leaders Forum

** IMPORTANT ** NEW MEETING LOCATION **

Our next local AITP Chapter meeting will be on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, in Room 4430 at Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

This presentation is open for members and non-members, faculty, staff, and students.

ABSTRACT:
Our annual Technology Leaders Forum provides an opportunity to get a pulse of where we are with the "State of IT" in our region. You will have an opportunity to ask and receive feedback from the advisory panel and participate in open discussions.

This year’s theme focuses on how AI technology can impact our lives and workplace.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

· Brian Feldman: Chief Innovation Officer, Thread Bioscience, Inc. Brian is currently the Chief Innovation Officer for Thread Bioscience, helping to bring rapid urinary tract infection tests to market in addition to other innovative medical devices. He is responsible for product development, ramping up production, and mentoring coworkers to develop their talents.

Brian graduated from Penn State University in 2004 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and completed his Master's Degree in Engineering and Technology Innovation Management at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.

Brian's career has involved working with many Fortune 500 companies. Brian holds US Patent (7,616,012) for innovations involving an advanced capacitance paddle developed while working for General Electric and has several other patent applications currently in the works. His work with other companies has involved the development of computer programs and databases to aid in the analysis of data and automation of difficult tasks.

Brian founded Feldman Consulting Enterprises, LLC in 2009. Initially his consulting focused primarily on database development but has since evolved to focus more on product development and control systems. He is regarded as one of the top consultants for the Arduino platform.

Brian is also adjunct faculty at the NCC Fab Lab where he teaches robotics classes and gets involved in a variety of other projects. He developed the control system for and exhibited TOBOR, the gigantic robotic dinosaur at the 2015, 2017, and 2019 Bay Area Maker Faire and the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 World Maker Faire in New York, which won 6 Editor's Choice awards and was rated #2 Coolest Project at Maker Faire by PCMag.

· Paul Gosselin: Brand Developer, Author, and Angel Investor. Paul Gosselin (Goose), digital marketing expert, brand experience developer, author, and angel Investor. I'm passionate about the next frontier of AI marketing technology and can't wait to see what innovations will bring! As a brand expert, I specialize in building tools to help engage, manage and promote your business . I love to share my knowledge and insights with others through my writing. And as an Angel Investor, I'm excited to support the next generation of entrepreneurs and help bring their ideas to life. So if you're a fellow tech enthusiast or just someone who wants to stay up-to-date on the latest digital developments, make sure to connect with me! Together, we can make a difference in the world of technology.

· Koskas Hatalis, Ph.D.: Founder of GoCharlie. Dr. Kostas Hatalis is a seasoned entrepreneur and AI researcher. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a focus on deep learning methods for nonparametric probabilistic forecasting from Lehigh University, where he also completed B.S. degrees in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Business, as well as an M.S. in Computer Science with a thesis in computational neuroscience. Dr. Hatalis, with over two dozen AI-related publications, has held various high-impact research and consulting roles, including a postdoctoral research fellow focused on AI systems for smart cities, a consultant for the defense industry, and a quant for boutique investment firms. As the founder and CEO of GoCharlie.AI, he currently leads the company’s AI initiatives, in collaboration with the Stanford Research Institute and Ben Franklin TechVentures, to boost workflow productivity gains for enterprises.

· Sundar Vedantham, Ph.D.: Dr. Sundar Vedantham served as Director of Software Development at Intel Corporation in the Network and Edge Group (NEX) of Intel Corporation in Allentown, PA. His skillset and experience cover a wide range of telecommunication related domains. His team was recently involved in delivering highly optimized software layer that drive silicon hardware accelerators, designed to aid mobile and cloud networks. He joined Lucent Technologies couple of decades back and has traveled through various incarnations of his division to eventually become part of Intel Corporation.

His research interests include network traffic and congestion management, high-speed networking, security, and theoretical computer models, areas in which he holds patents and has published papers, book chapters & articles. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1997 from Louisiana State University. In his early years he has worked in a Helicopter Design Bureau and served two years as a maintenance engineer in an offshore Oil & Gas platform.

He enjoys writing articles in English and Tamil to help improve public understanding of the technical details behind the fields he has worked on and to attract young students to get into STEM fields. Many of his articles are available online for free. As part of this effort, he has published a book titled Thought Experiments available online to help anyone from high school students onwards understand complex ideas embedded in fields like Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Ethics, Democracy and Medicine.

NEW LOCATION & DIRECTIONS:
Ben Franklin Technology Partners in Room 4430 located at 116 Research Drive, Bethlehem, PA 18105. click here for driving directions

DINNER FEES:
If you are planning to join us for the in-person optional networking dinner at 6 PM, there is a $20 fee via cash or credit/debit at the door. If you are not planning for dinner, please join us at 7 p.m. complimentary presentation (in-person or remote).

If you wish to attend the presentation portion virtually, you are welcome to use this Zoom connection: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84101664125.

AGENDA:
5:30PM – 6:00 PM (Arrival and professional networking)
6:00 – 7:00 PM (Networking Dinner)
7:00 – 8:00 or 8:30 PM EST (Presentation -- FREE)

For a listing of our AITP Lehigh Valley Chapter events, please visit our website at http://www.lv-aitp.org/

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19th!!