AI Across America: Birmingham

The University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, Innovation Depot, the Biggio Center at Auburn University, AI Huntsville, and BirminghamAI are partnering with SeedAI to present AI Across America: Birmingham — a single-day convening on Wednesday, October 14th at Innovation Depot, focused on Alabama’s AI readiness.

The event will bring together leaders from academia, state government, industry, and the startup community for an honest, substantive conversation about what it actually takes to build a strong state AI ecosystem. Topics will include:

• What institutional capacity Alabama has to turn research investment into economic and scientific benefit

• Where AI is actually accelerating scientific discovery in Alabama labs

• State and municipal AI governance, from the Technology Quality Assurance Board to Huntsville’s city task force

• Who gets access to Alabama’s computing infrastructure, and what communities get from the data center buildout

• What it takes to build and keep AI companies in Alabama

Agenda

8:30 – 9:00 AM: Registration & Welcome

9:15 – 10:00 AM: Capacity — Turning Research Investment into Benefit

• Dr. Bryan Boudouris, Vice President for Research and Economic Development, University of Alabama

• Dr. Majed Dweik, Vice President of Research and Economic Development, Alabama A&M University

• Charlie Pond, Executive Director, SSBCI (Moderator)

10:00 – 10:45 AM: Leveraging AI to Accelerate Scientific Discovery

• Dr. Shahram Rahimi, Head, Department of Computer Science, University of Alabama

• Dr. Ralph J. Zottola, AVP for IT-Research Computing, University of Alabama at Birmingham

• Austin Carson, Founder & CEO, SeedAI (Moderator)

10:45 – 10:55 AM: Break

10:55 – 11:40 AM: AI Governance — From Task Force to Implementation

• Rep. Mike Shaw, Alabama House of Representatives

• Aaron Wright, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, Alabama Office of Information Technology

• Ryan Letson, AI Huntsville (Moderator)

11:40 AM – 12:25 PM: Networking Lunch

12:25 – 1:10 PM: AI Infrastructure and What Communities Get

• Fernanda Foertter, Executive Director, High Performance Computing and Data Center, University of Alabama

• Patrick T. Murphy, Jr., Vice President for Economic Development, Alabama Power

• Rick Roden, President & CEO, Greater Jackson County Chamber of Commerce

• Miller Girvin, President, Economic Development Partnership of Alabama (Moderator)

1:10 – 1:55 PM: Alabama’s AI Economy — Attracting, Building, Retaining

• Panelists to be announced

• Emily Jerkins, CEcD, Founder, Bloom Economy Labs (Moderator)

1:55 – 2:10 PM: Closing & Next Steps