Product & Business Strategy in AI: Talks + AI Agent Workshops
Interdisciplinary sessions that pair product and business strategy in AI, focusing on how organizations and community projects design, build, and deploy AI agents and workflows to create measurable impact and new opportunities.
TechEquity Ai invites you to an evening of applied AI learning and hands-on building at the Snowflake SV AI Hub in Menlo Park. We bring together AI leaders, developers, founders, early-career talent, and professionals exploring AI.
This session is part of the TechEquity Ai Monthly Forum Series, combining strategic insights and real-world use cases from industry leaders, alongside technical workshops and live demonstrations.
Speakers
Fahad Khan — Director of Programs, AI Foundations, Northrop Grumman
Ivan Lee — Founder & CEO, Datasaur
Dave Nielsen — Head of Community, AI Alliance (IBM)
Mike Prince — CEO, Matchwise
What to Expect
Program details are subject to change.
5:00–6:00 PM | Registration & Workshop Pre-requisite Setup
Check in; bring your laptop to set up for the workshop.
Grab a drink, enjoy light refreshments, and connect with fellow attendees before the program begins.
6:00–6:15 PM | Welcome
Welcome and announcements
6:15PM–7:30PM | Keynotes
Building a Physics AI Foundation Model for Rocket Science
Fahad Khan — Director of Programs, AI Foundations, Northrop Grumman
The Sovereign Stack: Why Private LLMs are the Only Path to Strategic Independence in 2026
Ivan Lee — Founder & CEO, Datasaur
For years, enterprises relied on third-party foundation models, often trading data privacy and strategic alignment for ease of access. In 2026, that trade-off is no longer necessary or defensible. As foundation model providers increasingly bake specific agendas and commercial biases into their "black box" systems, organizations face a critical choice: remain a tenant on someone else’s platform or build their own intelligence. This session explores the shift from massive capital expenditure to high-efficiency deployment. We will examine how the maturation of the open-source ecosystem has democratized high-performance LLMs, allowing companies to fortify their market position through custom-tuned, private models. Attendees will learn how to leverage these "off-the-shelf" giants to create a proprietary competitive advantage without the billion-dollar price tag.
7:30-8:30 PM | Workshops
Workshop (Intro): Introduction to AI Agents
Dave Nielsen — Head of Community, AI Alliance (IBM)
Mike Prince — CEO, Matchwise
(Meeting Hub)
Workshop (Advanced)
TBA
(Workshop Room)
8:30–9:00 PM | Networking & Closing
Continue the conversation with developers, founders, and AI practitioners in a collaborative, welcoming environment. Light refreshments will be provided.
Speaker Profiles
Fahad Khan — Director of Programs, AI Foundations, Northrop Grumman
Fahad Khan is the Director of AI Foundations at Northrop Grumman working on frontiers of human exploration and invention including: physical AI, space robotics and autonomy, space data centers; and helping set the direction of AI Integration at the world's most strategic aerospace business.
Ivan Lee — Founder & CEO, Datasaur
A Stanford-trained computer scientist and serial entrepreneur, Ivan began his journey by founding Loki Studios—later sold to Yahoo—before going on to spend a decade building AI products at Yahoo and Apple. Along the way, he recognized a critical gap in the evolution of natural language processing and large language models.
To address this, he launched Datasaur, a company dedicated to democratizing advanced NLP workflows. Backed by $8M in funding from Initialized Capital, Y Combinator, and Greg Brockman, Datasaur now powers teams at Google, Spotify, Qualtrics, the FBI, and beyond.
Dave Nielsen — Head of Community, AI Alliance (IBM)
Highly motivated and results-oriented Developer Relations professional with 20 years in open source, databases, devops, payments and AI, and now 1 year in generative AI. Proven ability to build and manage vibrant, engaging developer communities, drive developer adoption of cloud products, and foster strategic partnerships within the developer ecosystem. Skilled in community building, presenting technical topics, communication and content creation. Passionate about developer experience and success.
Mike Prince — CEO, Matchwise
Mike Prince has been developing AI applications since 1999. At Nuance Communications he developed a natural language voice application to book business travel. Later he joined Tempo AI, another Stanford Research Institute spin-off that used AI to generate dossiers for people in your calendar meetings. Tempo was later acquired by Salesforce. He spent two years learning cryptography for a blockchain startup, which he later applied at Identiv for the U.S. armed forces. Over the last two years he has been exploring how the Agentic Web can solve many business and social problems, and has developed protocols for decentralized agentic identity.
Who Should Attend
Product managers and business leaders driving AI initiatives within organizations
Developers and engineers exploring applied AI and agent-based systems
Startup founders building AI-powered products
Students and career-transition professionals looking to deepen hands-on AI experience
Anyone interested in practical, responsible approaches to modern AI development
Important Details
Format: In-person, technical and hands-on
What to Bring: Please bring a laptop for workshops and demos
Code of Conduct: This event follows TechEquity Ai’s community code of conduct to ensure a respectful, inclusive environment for all participants
Event Info
🎟️ Registration: RSVP required (limited capacity)
🍽️🪑 F&B and Seating: Limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis
🏢 Venue: Snowflake Silicon Valley AI Hub (SVAI)
📍 Address: 8th Floor at 135 Constitution Dr. Menlo Park, CA 94025
🚗Parking: Self-park in the garage next to the 135 Building
❗Arrival Guide: Download the guide at bit.ly/SVAI-Arrival-Guide
About the Event Organizer
TechEquity Ai is a nonprofit organization dedicated to democratizing access to artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge and applications.
Our flagship initiative is the TechEquity Ai Summit, a series of high-impact events designed to foster innovation, broad participation, and education in AI. In addition to the Summit, TechEquity Ai hosts a Monthly Forum Series to keep the community engaged year-round through ongoing learning, networking, and hands-on exploration of emerging AI tools and ideas.
Across our programs, we bring together builders, leaders, and learners through keynotes, panels, fireside chats, hands-on workshops, and interactive demos.
To learn more about TechEquity Ai and our programs, visit techequity-ai.org or reach out to us at [email protected].