About us
What We Are
Tech & Adjacent bridges the gap between the people building tomorrow’s tech, the defenders securing it, and the leaders navigating its impact. In an era where every industry is tech-driven, the most valuable insights happen when distinct domains collide and cross-pollinate.
Why We Exist
To connect, share knowledge, and grow together. We break down the silos between researchers, hands-on engineers, digital trust professionals, and industry operators to examine how modern technology is built, protected, governed, and monetized in the real world.
Who Should Join
Builders & Creators: Engineers, architects, and product leads pushing boundaries—whether you’re orchestrating agentic workflows, experimenting with open-source AI frameworks, or laying down core infrastructure.
Defenders & Trust Professionals: Red, Blue, and Purple teams, cybersecurity operators, and GRC leaders setting the standards for digital trust, compliance, and resilience.
Business Leaders & Decision-Makers: Founders, executives, and strategists evaluating emerging tech capabilities, assessing operational and cyber risks, and driving pragmatic adoption.
Tech-Adjacent Specialists: Domain experts across finance, healthcare, law, and real estate who leverage, regulate, or operationalize technology in high-stakes environments.
Where We Meet
Locations rotate across local spaces, tech hubs, and partner venues depending on the format of each session.
When We Gather
We aim for monthly gatherings, alternating between deep-dive discussions and casual networking to keep the community vibrant, sustainable, and connected.
Upcoming events
1
Machine Learning / AI / Technology / Risk + Happy Hour Prototype v0
Schiller International University, 400 N Tampa St, 9th Floor, Tampa, FL, USLet's bring technology and the technology adjacent together to connect, share knowledge, learn and grow TOGETHER!
Please register via the Cvent link below:
https://cvent.me/xmvMrnContext:
We are requesting signup via Cvent because that usually provides a more accurate headcount which is helpful for food and drink logistics.Agenda details below; a finalized lineup will be posted soon. Note: this is the first iteration of our tech talks + happy hour format at Schiller International University, and we'll be refining and optimizing it as we go. Your feedback along the way is welcome.
Thank you in advance to Nic Rogers and Schiller International University for their willingness to roll with us on our journey.
Thank you to Andy Seely for his amazingly unbounded positivity and altruism!
For those that need CPE's, please sign up via the Cvent.
We can validate the CPE's onsite via Cvent.
***
Title: AI Panel - Revisiting AI Transformation opportunities due to the rapid evolution of capabilitiesWith AI model performance and tooling evolving at a breakneck pace, the lifecycle of technical feasibility has compressed. Solutions deemed impractical just months ago are frequently production-ready today. We will examine how enterprise leaders and practitioners are navigating this shifting baseline—reassessing former roadblocks, managing risk, and executing sustainable AI transformation strategies.
Panelists:
James Gress: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesgress/
Jim Lovett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrlovettdba/
Mikael Loefstrand: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaelloefstrand/Title: Detection of Confounders in Computed Tomography Datasets
Computed Tomography (CT) scans are used to train machine learning models to predict cancer outcomes. Datasets are frequently composed of images collected using different devices or settings, which can reduce classifier accuracy.
This talk covers an automated method for screening CT datasets to detect features that make models learn spurious associations - called confounders - and other unwanted variations in data. By understanding what affects data quality, we can mitigate these issues or adjust image acquisition processes to prevent them from happening in the future.Speaker: Nikolai Fetisov
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nnfetisov/Title: The chart is already multimodal. Why isn't the model?
Every clinical decision draws on labs, coded history, notes, and imaging at once. Most deployed models read one. The work began as an ONC engagement, built as a physician assistant and trained with split learning, so records never left the institutions holding them. Asked which task would earn a place in their day, physicians answered consistently: help with the differential. The 2015 National Academies report found that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime. These are usually failures of consideration rather than knowledge: the right diagnosis was never placed on the list.
Solution is valuesets governed data trained with multimodal model built with fusion architecture. Each branch is projected to a shared width, given its own self-attention, and combined in one late fusion feeding condition heads that share a representation. Results are early with no prospective study with clinicians yet, but the validation metrics looks promising. Future improvements with contrastive learning and focal loss will drastically increase recall and additional testing is carried out by analyzing Krippendorf alpha.
The opportunities of this engine serve six workflows: diagnostic support, risk adjustment, trial recruitment in phase3, quality measurement, Hedis scoring, and rare disease detection. Only the label set, the threshold, and the recipient change.
Differential diagnosis is the capability. The opportunity remains open.Speaker: Sravan K. Elineni
https://www.linkedin.com/in/esravan07kumar/Title: AI-Powered Defense for PHI: Smarter Cybersecurity for Healthcare Compliance
As cyber threats targeting patient data grow more sophisticated, healthcare providers are turning to AI to stay ahead. Rather than reacting after damage is done, AI-powered tools spot unusual activity early, streamline HIPAA compliance, and speed up incident response—helping protect EHRs, medical devices, and telehealth systems while preserving the trust patients place in their care.
Speaker: Yukti Goyal
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yukti-lnu-08732a5b/Title: ADios: Breaking up with Active Directory
(previously presented at 2026 BSides TampaActive Directory (AD) became the de facto standard for Windows-centric organizations to add security, but today, removing AD or minimizing its footprint is considered a security enhancement.
More than a technical optimization, switching from hybrid-AD to cloud-native Entra ID is a risk reduction strategy. Have the capabilities of cloud native reached a tipping point where more organizations can seriously consider reducing or eliminating AD? This session will discuss a regulated organization's journey to cloud native, reasons to do so, challenges, and lessons learned.
Speaker: Daniel Jarboe
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-jarboe/Title: The Market is Trying to Tell You Something
The tech job market has been sending signals for two years. Most of us have been too busy surviving it to read them. After 15+ years in tech and a recent job search that took me across a couple dozen companies, I came away with both a new role and something just as valuable: a pattern. Job descriptions have quietly shifted. Hiring panels are asking different questions. “ROI” means something specific now that it didn’t mean in the zero-interest 2010s or the Great Resignation era of a couple of years ago. The skills companies say they want versus the skills that actually get you hired don’t look like they come from the same list. This talk is an honest, experience-based, practitioner-level read of what the market is telling us about where tech is headed. It doesn’t have any LinkedIn takes or recycled frameworks; just patterns from the front lines, with implications for how you position yourself, make the case for your team, and think about the next few years of your career.Speakers: Joey De Villa (and maybe Anitra Pavka)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeydevilla/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitrapavka/A bit of singing and creativity:
Singer: Kat Casperson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katcasperson/Thank you to venue host:
Schiller International University
https://www.schiller.edu/Nic Rogers:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamnicrogers/Andy Seeley:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewseelytampa/Jennifer King PhD:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-king-ph-d-60877489Marta Muniz Ferrer:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marta-mu%C3%B1iz/Thank you to food and drink sponsors:
ISACA West Florida Chapter
https://www.westfloridaisaca.org/More sponsors coming...
If you are interested in increasing your organization's exposure or would like to support the cause...please let us know!
***Lastly...apologies about last minute notice...been a bit non-stop!
But...the hope is to make this monthly...which will ease the logistics!
6 attendees
