Lightning Talks from Women and Folks in Tech
Gusto is excited to host community events at our SF and NYC offices, showcasing inspiring women and folks in tech. At each event, we'll hear from a panel of presenters who will give a lightning talk about a technical project or topic they are passionate about, followed by a Q&A session. Attendees will also have the opportunity to network.
This event is open to everyone.
On June 2nd, join us at Gusto's NYC office or remotely.
Speakers
Eli Samara — So I built the torment nexus from the acclaimed sci-fi novel "do not build the torment nexus"
A look at the tooling available for targeted misinformation and propaganda campaigns, and the safeguard circumvention required to pull them off.
Molly Li — Shipping Solo: How I Designed, Illustrated, and Coded a Pixel Art Desktop Pet
What it actually feels like to own an entire product end-to-end — concept, pixel art, and production code. Molly walks through Peekaboo, a Mac desktop app starring an animated dog named Vector, and how AI tools shaped the solo design+engineering workflow.
Chaya Trapedo — Say That Again? Breaking Language and Ability Barriers with Multimodal ASR
Automatic speech recognition works great — until it meets code-switching, atypical speech, or anything outside a narrow notion of "normal." Chaya shares research on context-aware, adaptive approaches that make voice technology genuinely inclusive.
Brandi Nichols — Too Many Vulnerabilities: Using AI to Tame SCA Alert Fatigue
I’ll share how I built a lightweight SCA IDE plugin that combines deterministic analysis and AI to reduce alert fatigue in AppSec workflows. The talk will cover why traditional SCA tools overwhelm developers with high-volume, low-context findings, and how techniques like dependency analysis, reachability, and EPSS reduce much of this noise. I’ll then explore where AI adds value on top of these signals: clustering related alerts, generating natural-language explanations of risk, and providing actionable remediation guidance tied to actual code usage. I’ll include a brief demo and discuss design decisions, tradeoffs, and lessons learned from integrating AI into a developer-focused security workflow, with the goal of making vulnerability management more usable and effective in practice.
Angela Ng — AI for Good
Every AI query has a water footprint; every model has a land cost. Drawing on a decade of field work in public health, climate, and social impact, Angela asks when "AI for good" is genuinely delivering — and when it's a compelling pitch with a pilot study attached.
Agenda
5:30 - Doors open
6:00 - Lightning Talks and Q&A
7:15 - Networking
Light snacks and beverages will be provided.
Joining in Person
Gusto NYC HQ - 1 Pennsylvania Plaza, Floor 52, New York, NY 10119
Entry details will be shared via email before the event.
Joining Remotely
Link will be sent out via email before the event