The Caribbean's first AI summit is in the books.
Gracias, San Juan.

·1,000+ members····
0Full days
0Tracks
0Keynotes
0Sessions
0Speakers
0Hackathon prize pool
PRAICHPE · Hewlett Packard Enterprisedfx5 · AWSHello MediaCaprus AIEnalcaJetBrainsPharos SolutionsMunicipio de San JuanEmprendimiento CapitalRizqHolberton Coding SchoolW@WFusionworksProaktivaEstrella, LLCOm Aura MediaMultiSystemsMusikaiAsociación de Marketing · UAGM CupeyCiprés LLCCentro Unido de DetallistasakcelitaSeguros CUDVesper P4Cámara de Comercio de Puerto RicoPRAICHPE · Hewlett Packard Enterprisedfx5 · AWSHello MediaCaprus AIEnalcaJetBrainsPharos SolutionsMunicipio de San JuanEmprendimiento CapitalRizqHolberton Coding SchoolW@WFusionworksProaktivaEstrella, LLCOm Aura MediaMultiSystemsMusikaiAsociación de Marketing · UAGM CupeyCiprés LLCCentro Unido de DetallistasakcelitaSeguros CUDVesper P4Cámara de Comercio de Puerto Rico

The Caribbean meets the future of AI.

For centuries, the Caribbean has been where cultures, continents and ideas meet. Today, that same crossroads becomes the stage where the world comes to engage with AI. Not to watch from the sidelines. To lead from here.

Two days in San Juan to build what's next — with the people already building it.

"The Future Starts with Better Questions."
Tracks

Find your room.

Business leaders, technical builders and the AI-curious: everyone has a seat. Pick your path.

01Business

Lead with AI.

Lead with AI.

Strategy, finance, healthcare, startups, creative industries. For the people deciding where the business goes.

See sessions →
02Technical

Build what comes next.

Compete with AI.

AI in production, hands-on workshops, LLMs, fine-tuning, security, infrastructure. For the builders.

See sessions →
03Learning

AI starts here.

No experience needed.

AI for everyone. Career impact, education, ethics, ecosystem. No prior experience needed.

Start here →
HACKATHON
$10,000

AI for Puerto Rico.

Teams of 2–4. 48 hours. One theme: build AI that solves a real problem on the island. Winners split $10,000.

Do you have what it takes?
$10K in prizesTeams of 2–448 hoursTheme: AI for PR
Build the FutureCaribbean AI Summit Hackathon en acción
Speakers · Lineup

The voices moving Caribbean AI forward.

43 speakers · 5 keynotes · 3 tracks · 2 days. Global AI leaders and the best Caribbean talent on one stage.

Pablo José Hernández Rivera
Pablo José Hernández RiveraResident Commissioner of Puerto Rico
Business · Opening Keynote
Carlos ‘Johnny’ Méndez Núñez
Carlos ‘Johnny’ Méndez NúñezSpeaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives
Business · Opening Keynote
Fabio Duarte
Fabio DuarteAI Researcher · MIT Senseable City Lab
Business · Opening Keynote
Tim Berglund
Tim BerglundConfluent
Business · Keynote
Juan Carlos Pedreira
Juan Carlos PedreiraSBH Digital
Business · Keynote
Gauthier Vasseur
Gauthier VasseurUC Berkeley · Fisher Center for AI
Business · AI Panel Moderator
Idoia Salazar
Idoia SalazarPresident · OdiseIA · AI Advisor to EU Parliament
Business · Closing Keynote
Jose Carlos Sariol
Jose Carlos SariolMicrosoft
Business
Julybeth Alicea
Julybeth AliceaCEO · HR Disruptor
Business · Legal Panel
Alberto Estrella
Alberto EstrellaManaging Partner · Estrella, LLC
Business · Legal Panel
Miguel F. Marrero
Miguel F. MarreroPresidente de la Comisión de Tecnología del Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas
Business · Legal Panel Moderator
Mildred Ramirez
Mildred RamirezBusiness Squad SOS
Business
Elsa del Pino
Elsa del PinoPuerto Rico Computer Services
Business
Jose Oyola-Cabello
Jose Oyola-CabelloDirector of Engineering, Hybrid Cloud · HPE
Business · Opening Keynote
Bhavesh Chandraprakash
Bhavesh ChandraprakashHPE
Business · Sponsor Session
Jammy Chan
Jammy ChanSr. Principal Software Engineer · HPE
Business · Sponsor Session
Sai Ramamoorthy
Sai RamamoorthyVP Engineering · HPE (Juniper Networks)
Business · AI Panel
Pavan Agarwal
Pavan AgarwalCEO · Celligence & Sun West Mortgage · Creator of AngelAi
Business · AI Panel
Damián Fernández
Damián FernándezCEO & Founder · DFX5
Business · Sponsor Session
Gary Crisci
Gary CrisciCaprus AI · ex-GE HealthCare
Technical · Business AI Panel
Wilmer Reyes Berríos
Wilmer Reyes BerríosSenator · Chair, Senate Committee on Science, Technology & AI
Business · Keynote Remarks
Stephen Smith
Stephen SmithCarnegie Mellon University · AAAI President
Technical · Opening Keynote
David Bartolomei
David BartolomeiMonitorea.ai
Technical · Keynote
Kay Firth-Butterfield
Kay Firth-ButterfieldFormer Head of AI · World Economic Forum
Technical · Closing Keynote
Julian Duque
Julian DuqueSalesforce · MuleSoft
Technical
Giselle Zeno
Giselle ZenoMIT Lincoln Laboratory
Technical
Michael Oguike
Michael OguikeAmazon Web Services
Technical
Andrés Andreu
Andrés AndreuConstella Intelligence
Technical
Aury Curbelo
Aury CurbeloDigetech Cybersecurity
Technical
Filomeno González
Filomeno GonzálezDatabricks
Technical
Bivin Sadler
Bivin SadlerSouthern Methodist University
Society
Silvino Díaz
Silvino DíazStarving Artists
Society
Frances Heredia
Frances HerediaComprehensive Cancer Center PR
Society · Panel
Wilfredo De Jesús-Monge
Wilfredo De Jesús-MongeBioclinical Studies
Society · Panel
Asra Ali
Asra AliAli Healthcare
Society · Panel
Luis Antonio Díaz
Luis Antonio DíazOfferioAI
Society
Nesty Delgado
Nesty DelgadoPMTL Institute · AblaTek
Society
Gerardo Lebrón
Gerardo LebrónGolden Pebbles
Society
Andreica Maldonado
Andreica MaldonadoBusiness Development Director · Invest Puerto Rico
Society · Panel
Alexander Pazo Rodríguez
Alexander Pazo RodríguezDirector of Information Systems · Municipio de San Juan
Society · Panel
Alan Taveras
Alan TaverasPresident · Centro Unido de Detallistas
Society · Panel
Carlos Montañez
Carlos MontañezCPA
Society · Panel Moderator
OWTLW
OWTLWEliezer Fontánez · Visual Artist & Illustrator
Society
Agenda

Two days. 43 speakers. 3 parallel tracks.

The agenda as it ran on October 9 and 10, 2026.

Tap ☆ on the sessions you want to attend, then open My agenda to see just those. Saved on this device.

BusinessBallroom BTechnicalRoom 209SocietyRoom 208
8:00 AM
Registration & Coffee · Sponsor Expo Opens
9:30 – 11:00 AMOpening Keynote
Welcome · 9:30Ballroom B
JD TorresPRAIC
Opening Keynote · Gold SponsorBallroom B
Jose Oyola-CabelloHPE

AI & How It Impacts the Enterprise

HPE opens the Summit: how AI is changing the way enterprises build, run and secure technology, and how to get from experiments to AI that delivers.
Read the full description

HPE opens the Summit with a look at how AI is changing the way enterprises build, run and secure their technology, and what it takes to move from experiments to infrastructure that delivers.

PRAICBallroom B
Edward RoskePuerto Rico AI Community
KeynoteBallroom B
Pablo José Hernández RiveraResident Commissioner of Puerto Rico

Fireside Chat: AI in Puerto Rico and Beyond

Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner on AI in Puerto Rico and beyond: federal policy, investment, and what the island needs to compete.
BusinessBallroom B
Fabio DuarteAI Researcher · MIT Senseable City Lab

AI for Urban Biodiversity

How MIT Senseable City Lab uses AI, computer vision and microbiome data to monitor urban biodiversity as cities work to reverse species loss.
Read the full description

About half of the world’s GDP, approximately US$44 trillion, is moderately or highly dependent on nature, according the the World Economic Forum. By mid-century, between 30% to 50% of species may be lost. Urbanization has been a major driver of biodiversity collapse. However, cities have been implementing policies not only to avert and revert this collapse, but also to foster rich biodiversity—which improves people’s health and quality of life. Monitoring biodiversity, though, is a challenge. At MIT Senseable City Lab we have been developing technologies and employing artificial intelligence methods to monitor urban biodiversity, including the use generative AI to improve classification models, computer vision to detect insect species and identify tree species, and the analysis of air and soil urban microbiome.

TechnicalBallroom B
Stephen SmithCarnegie Mellon University · AAAI President

AI for Smart Cities & Urban Mobility

From Surtrac, the AI traffic-signal system now in 40+ North American cities, to connected vehicles: how AI makes urban mobility smarter, safer and greener.
Read the full description

Real-time traffic signal control presents a challenging multi-agent planning problem, particularly in urban road networks where (unlike simpler arterial settings) there are competing dominant traffic flows that shift through the day. Further complicating matters, urban environments require attention to multi-modal traffic flows (vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, buses, etc.) that move at different speeds and may be given different priorities. For many years now, my research group has focused on utilizing AI techniques and technologies to produce better solutions to this and other interconnected problems in urban mobility. Our initial work produced Surtrac, a real-time adaptive traffic signal control system unique in its ability to optimize movement of the actual traffic on the road, as opposed to optimizing a prediction of current traffic based on recent historical traffic flow information. Surtrac treats traffic signal control as a decentralized online planning process, where each intersection (agent) repeatedly solves a type of single machine scheduling problem locally and then communicates expected traffic flows and congestion to its neighboring intersections to achieve network level coordination. Pilot tests of the system showed significant reductions in both vehicle travel times and emissions, and it is now deployed in over 40 North American cities. Given this success, more recent work has focused on making this approach to smart traffic signals smarter, safer, and more sustainable. One thrust has explored opportunities for further optimizing network traffic flows that are made possible by emerging connected vehicle technology and real-time vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) connectivity, demonstrating the reciprocal traffic flow optimization benefit of vehicles sharing their route information with the traffic signal system and establishing a novel basis for revenue generation via voluntary tolling at the intersection. Another thrust has developed a smartphone app for pedestrians with disabilities that utilizes real-time connectivity to the traffic signal system to influence traffic control decisions and promote safe intersection crossing. Other current work centers on techniques for integrated optimization of signal control and vehicle route choice decisions, and for utilizing large language models to achieve cooperative perception and navigation on urban roadways by multiple connected autonomous vehicles. In this talk, I’ll summarize this overall research effort and discuss outstanding research challenges.

Special AddressBallroom B
Carlos ‘Johnny’ Méndez NúñezSpeaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives

Remarks

Remarks from the Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on the role of AI in Puerto Rico's future.
Day 1 kickoff by Gabriel Reilly
11:00 AM
Coffee & Networking · Sponsor Expo
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
BusinessBallroom B
Mildred RamirezBusiness Squad SOS

Leadership in the Age of AI

AI is moving faster than most organizations can prepare. How leaders build governance that manages the risk and turns AI into a measurable advantage.
Read the full description

En una era donde la adopción de la IA avanza más rápido que la preparación organizacional, los líderes que establecen marcos claros de gobernanza no solo mitigan riesgos — convierten la IA en una ventaja competitiva medible. Esta sesión equipa a ejecutivos con la mentalidad estratégica y las herramientas prácticas para liderar la implementación de IA con accountability, cumplimiento y confianza.

TechnicalRoom 209
Julian DuqueSalesforce · MuleSoft

So You Have 50 Agents. Now What?

Every platform now ships its own agents. Practical patterns for orchestrating many AI agents, mixing hard rules with LLM reasoning, so they scale, not sprawl.
Read the full description

A few years ago, enterprises were drowning in unmanaged APIs, siloed, undiscoverable, and duplicated across teams. We solved that with API-led connectivity. Now we're watching the exact same pattern repeat itself with AI agents. Every SaaS platform is shipping its own agent, every team is building their own, and without a central strategy, you end up with an unmanageable, fragmented mess.

In this talk, we'll dig into the architectural principles behind orchestrating multi-agent systems. Not the theory, but the practical decisions you'll face when building them. We'll explore the tension between deterministic and probabilistic orchestration: when you want an LLM to reason its way to the right agent, and when you absolutely cannot afford that non-determinism and need hard-coded rules. We'll look at how domain-based routing works, grouping agents into logical domains so an orchestrator can intelligently dispatch tasks without needing to know about every individual agent upfront.

Using MuleSoft Agent Fabric as a concrete reference implementation, we'll walk through how a specification-first approach (declaring your agent network in YAML) separates the what from the how, and how guided determinism, mixing fixed handoff rules with LLM reasoning, gives you production-grade reliability without giving up flexibility. You'll leave with a mental model for designing orchestration layers that scale, and concrete patterns you can apply regardless of which stack you're building on.

SocietyRoom 208
Bivin SadlerSouthern Methodist University

AI-Powered Oral Exams

Generative AI broke written assessment. Can it rescue it? Inside Elenkis, an AI platform for Socratic oral exams, with early results from real classrooms.
Read the full description

Generative AI is often discussed in education as a threat to assessment integrity, but the same technology may also provide a new path forward. This presentation explores Elenkis, an AI-supported platform that uses conversational assessment to help verify student understanding in a world where written work is increasingly difficult to authenticate.

The talk will examine how large language models can be used to conduct dynamic oral questioning, generate context-sensitive follow-up questions, evaluate student responses with rubric-based criteria, and provide repeated opportunities for practice and mastery. Rather than focusing only on detection or restriction, Elenkis reframes the AI challenge as a design opportunity: if AI can weaken traditional assessment, it can also help create richer, more interactive forms of assessment.

The session is based on research from on ongoing pilot studies involving actual K-12 and higher education students, teachers, faculty, and administrators. Attendees will see how Elenkis applies generative AI to a practical education problem with broader implications for trust, verification, and human-AI interaction. Key takeaways include design principles for AI-mediated assessment, the role of Socratic dialogue in evaluating understanding, practical considerations for deploying LLM-based tools in institutional settings, and findings from in-progress pilots related to privacy, scalability, reliability, learning value, and faculty workload.

12:00 PM
Coffee & Networking · Sponsor Expo
12:15 – 1:00 PM
BusinessBallroom B
Jose Carlos Sariol + Guillermo CaicedoMicrosoft

Why Your AI Pilot Never Made It to Production

Why most AI pilots stall after the demo, and a 90-day playbook (leadership, high-value use cases, data governance) to get yours into production.
Read the full description

Organizations aren't short on AI ideas, they're short on results. Most AI pilots spark excitement, produce a great demo… and then stall before ever reaching production. Not because of the technology, but because of how adoption is governed.

In this session I'll share what I've seen working with enterprises, utilities, and government across the Caribbean: the exact patterns that kill a pilot, and the playbook to avoid them. We'll cover the three essentials of adoption that actually scales (leadership and sponsorship, high-value use cases, and data governance) and how to quantify business value before you invest, using a Customer Business Outcomes model.

You'll leave with a practical 90-day framework to move your next pilot from demo to measurable impact. No hype: real cases, real metrics, and the mistakes we already made for you.

TechnicalRoom 209
Giselle ZenoMIT Lincoln Laboratory

Do's and Don'ts in the Agentic AI Era

AI agents now act, not just answer. Real incidents show how they go wrong, plus a jargon-free checklist to get the upside without becoming a cautionary tale.
Read the full description

AI has stopped just talking and started doing. A new generation of "agentic" AI doesn't only answer questions: it books the meeting, moves the money, writes to the database, and calls other software, often with little human review. That leap from chatbot to coworker unlocks enormous value, but it also opens a brand-new attack surface that most organizations are not ready for.

In this session, we'll separate the hype from the hazard. Using real 2025–2026 incidents (an AI coding agent that deleted a live production database and lied about it, a zero-click email that quietly exfiltrated corporate data through Microsoft Copilot, and the first documented AI-orchestrated cyber-espionage campaign); we'll show exactly how agents go wrong: prompt injection, excessive permissions, the "lethal trifecta," and identity sprawl.

Then we'll get practical. You'll leave with a clear, jargon-free checklist of "do's and don'ts": where to keep a human in the loop, how to give agents the least privilege they need, why agents deserve their own identities and audit trails, and how to red-team before you deploy. Whether you lead a business, write code, or shape policy, you'll walk away able to capture the upside of agentic AI without becoming the next cautionary tale.

SocietyRoom 208
Silvino DíazStarving Artists

AI, IP & Machine Creativity

AI is colliding with IP law: who owns AI-made work, the use of a person's voice and likeness, and whether training on copyrighted material is legal.
Read the full description

Artificial intelligence is forcing a fundamental reexamination of how the law protects creativity, identity, and ownership. At the center of this shift are three converging legal issues: (1) the use of a person’s image, likeness, and voice in AI-generated content; (2)

the question of who owns works created with or by AI; and (3) the legality of using copyrighted material to train AI models. Each of these areas exposes a different gap between existing legal frameworks and rapidly evolving technology, challenging doctrines that were built for a pre-digital world. Courts, regulators, and legislators are now grappling with how to adapt longstanding principles to systems capable of generating content at scale, often without clear human authorship or consent.

1:00 PM
Lunch · Sponsor Expo
2:15 – 2:45 PMKeynote
BusinessBallroom B
Tim BerglundConfluent

A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence

From the Turing Test to the Transformer: 75 years of AI promises and disappointments, and what that history tells us about where we are now.
Read the full description

Up until early 2023, I regularly said AI would always have a bright future—and I didn't mean that as a compliment. Sure, deep learning had made us good at building very impressive classifiers in the decade or so prior, but for so long, human-like intelligence was just five years in the future—and that made me a skeptic. Things are different now, but how much skepticism is still warranted? What is it that we've got on our hands? What changes is modern AI bringing with it? Like with so many other questions, the answers are easier if we understand where we've come from.

Beginning with the Turing Test itself, the famous Dartmouth Conference of 1956, and the Perceptron of 1957, we'll trace decades of disappointment and broken promises as we tried to realize the true potential of computing, at the same time grasping for an understanding of what it means to be human. Taking a close look at various technologies along the way, we'll arrive in the 21st century, the revival of neural networks, the advent of the Transformer, and a revolutionary new technology category that has prompted oracles of weal and woe from our most optimistic and apocalyptic technology prophets.

Standing on the edge of the unknown, what elements of the 75-year-old promise have we realized? A close examination gives us a better view of our immediate future as technologists and insight into what it means to be human.

3:00 – 3:45 PM
Business · DFX5 & AWS Sponsor SessionBallroom B
Damián FernándezCEO & Founder · DFX5

Modernizing Customer Experience for the Agentic Era

How agentic AI is transforming customer experience, and how DFX5 and AWS help organizations rebuild infrastructure, data and contact centers for it.
Read the full description

Customer experience is entering a new era, powered by Agentic AI. A new paradigm where AI agents are beginning to transform how organizations design, operate, and scale customer experiences, taking automation and responsiveness to a new level.

Discover how DFX5, together with AWS technologies, is enabling this next generation of Customer Experience, and what organizations need to transform across infrastructure, data, and contact centers to build experiences that are smarter, more agile, and ready for the future.

TechnicalRoom 209
Michael OguikeAmazon Web Services

Customizing AI Models for Real Business ROI

Frontier models are general; business needs aren't. When and how to customize AI models (fine-tuning, continued pre-training) for accuracy, speed and ROI.
Read the full description

Frontier AI models are powerful, but general intelligence rarely delivers the accuracy, efficiency, and performance that real-world business applications demand. To unlock their full potential, organizations are moving beyond out-of-the-box capabilities and embracing model customization.

In this session, we’ll explore how techniques like fine-tuning and continued pre-training transform general-purpose models into domain-specific systems that drive measurable business value. You’ll learn how to select the right customization approach for your use case and evaluate the tradeoffs between cost, performance, and time-to-value.

Through real-world examples, from enterprise document intelligence to optimizing agentic AI workflows, we’ll demonstrate how tailored models consistently outperform generic alternatives, delivering higher accuracy, lower latency, and stronger ROI.

Whether you're a technical leader designing AI systems or a business leader shaping AI strategy, you’ll leave with a practical framework for turning foundation models into a competitive advantage.

Society · PanelRoom 208
Frances Heredia · Wilfredo De Jesús-Monge · Asra AliComprehensive Cancer Center PR · Bioclinical Studies · Ali Healthcare

AI in Healthcare & Life Sciences

Where AI is already changing healthcare in Puerto Rico: biomedical discovery, faster and more ethical clinical research, and the governance that keeps patients safe.
Read the full description

Three practitioners on where AI is already changing healthcare in Puerto Rico: biomedical discovery and precision medicine, faster and more ethical clinical research, and the governance and data protection that keep patients safe.

3:45 PM
Coffee & Networking · Sponsor Expo
4:15 – 5:00 PM
Business · PanelBallroom B
Miguel F. Marrero (moderator) + Julybeth Alicea + Alberto EstrellaColegio de Abogados · HR Disruptor · Estrella, LLC

Legal Panel

The legal side of AI at work: liability, privacy, bias, intellectual property, and what Puerto Rico organizations should put in place now.
TechnicalRoom 209
Andrés Andreu + Aury CurbeloConstella Intelligence · Digetech Cybersecurity

AI Cybersecurity: Offense vs. Defense

How criminals use AI today (deepfakes, dark LLMs, AI-written phishing, autonomous attacks) and the AI-driven defenses that fight back.
Read the full description

How criminals are using AI right now (deepfakes, dark LLMs, AI-written phishing and autonomous attacks) and how defenders fight back. Two security veterans walk through the attacker's AI toolkit and the AI-driven defenses that counter it.

SocietyRoom 208
Luis Antonio DíazOfferioAI

Sovereign AI: The Caribbean's Advantage

The Caribbean doesn't need to catch up; it can skip ahead. Why closed-loop, sovereign AI is the region's unfair advantage.
Read the full description

The dominant story about AI and the Caribbean is one of catch-up — fewer data centers, less compute, later arrival. That story is wrong, and believing it is the most expensive mistake the region can make right now.

The mainland AI economy is built on an architecture the Caribbean was never going to win at: hyperscale infrastructure, public frontier models, and data flows routed through U.S. servers governed by U.S. law. That architecture carries sovereignty costs regulated markets and enterprises increasingly cannot absorb. Forty-two percent of U.S. business leaders have already made major decisions on hallucinated data. Deloitte is being sued by four governments over AI-generated reports. The cracks are not hypothetical.

This keynote argues that the Caribbean's lack of legacy infrastructure is not a deficit — it is freedom to build the next architecture rather than inherit the broken one. Closed-loop, sovereign AI is the natural fit for the region's SMEs, mid-government, and regulated industries. Regional data consortiums and Caribbean-hosted compute aren't compromises. They are the model the rest of the world is quietly converging toward.

Drawing on work with governments and enterprises across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, this keynote reframes the region's smaller scale, applied to the right architecture, as a competitive advantage the mainland cannot replicate.

5:00 PM
Networking Reception · Sponsor Expo
6:00 PM
Hackathon Mentorship Sessions

48 hours. $10K in prizes.

HackathonRoom 209A
8:00 AM
Registration · Hackathon Build Continues
9:00 – 10:00 AMKeynote · Puerto Rico's AI Moment
BusinessBallroom B
Juan Carlos PedreiraSBH Digital

AI for Humans: How a Small Business Out-Competes a Fortune 500

How a two-person business can now out-compete a Fortune 500 with AI: what to automate first, real tools and prices, and when to walk away.
Read the full description

Most small business owners hear "artificial intelligence" and think one of two things: it's for Silicon Valley, or it's going to kill their business. Both are wrong, and the confusion is costing them money every day.

For the first time in business history, the gap between a two-person operation and a Fortune 500 is not capital or headcount. It's knowing which AI tools to use and in what order. This session walks through real cases of SMEs beating companies a hundred times their size, using tools that cost less than a business lunch per month.

Key takeaways:

- The three processes to automate first

- Specific tools and real pricing that work on lean budgets

- When to use AI, and when to walk away

- The question every owner must answer before 2027

TechnicalBallroom B
David BartolomeiMonitorea.ai

Signal in the Noise: AI Hype vs. Real Business Value

Separating AI hype from real business value: why AI projects fail, what actually works, and how to spot the high-impact use cases.
Read the full description

Artificial Intelligence is generating unprecedented excitement, investment, and attention. Yet despite the rapid pace of innovation, many organizations still struggle to identify where AI can create meaningful value and where it is simply adding to the noise.

This presentation explores how leaders, entrepreneurs, and technologists can separate AI hype from practical business outcomes. Drawing from real-world experience building AI-powered products and data platforms across banking, media, and enterprise environments, attendees will gain a framework for evaluating AI opportunities through the lens of business impact rather than technology trends.

The session will examine why many AI initiatives fail, common misconceptions around large language models and AI agents, and the critical role that data quality, operational workflows, and organizational readiness play in successful deployments. Through practical examples, including the development of an AI-powered media intelligence platform that analyzes radio, television, podcasts, and digital content at scale, attendees will see how AI can transform large volumes of unstructured information into actionable insights.

Rather than focusing on the latest model releases or speculative predictions, this presentation emphasizes the fundamentals that consistently drive successful outcomes: understanding the problem, building trustworthy data foundations, measuring results, and deploying AI where it creates genuine value.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how to evaluate AI investments, identify high-impact use cases, avoid common pitfalls, and distinguish lasting opportunities from short-term trends. In a world increasingly overwhelmed by both information and AI hype, the ability to find signal in the noise may become one of the most important skills for leaders and organizations alike.

Day 2 kickoff by Gabriel Reilly
10:15 – 11:00 AM
Business · Sponsor SessionBallroom B
Bhavesh Chandraprakash + Jammy ChanHPE

AI-Native Networking: Transforming Enterprise Network Operations

How AI-native networking changes enterprise network operations: networks that spot, diagnose and often fix problems before users notice.
Read the full description

HPE engineers show how AI-native networking is changing enterprise network operations: networks that spot, diagnose and often fix problems on their own before users ever notice.

Technical · WorkshopRoom 209
Rizq · Fusionworks · Holberton · Pharos SolutionsWorkshop · Bring your laptop

Hands-On: Getting AI Agents Up and Running with OpenAI and Anthropic

Bring your laptop: local AI teams walk you through getting AI agents running with OpenAI and Anthropic, so you leave with something that works.
SocietyRoom 208
Gerardo Lebrón, then Nesty DelgadoGolden Pebbles · PMTL Institute / AblaTek

The Right to Stay Human: Neural Privacy & BCIs · 2026: The Year AI Works With You… or Without You

Gerardo Lebrón: Brain-computer interfaces can read what we think before we act. Why neural data needs new protections, and a right to say no without being left behind.Nesty Delgado: 2026 is the turning point: will AI work with you or without you? Pairing AI with emotional intelligence to lead teams through the transformation.
Read the full description

Gerardo Lebrón: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are not merely the next consumer technology — they represent an unprecedented category of human intrusion. Unlike smartphones or social media, which record what people do or say, BCIs capture what people think and feel before any decision to act. When that neural data flows to private operators, it becomes the ultimate prediction product in what Zuboff called the "behavioral futures marketplace" — and AI is the engine that makes that marketplace run.

AI systems are what transform raw neural signals into actionable intelligence. The same machine learning architectures that infer mood from a scroll pattern or predict purchase intent from a search query can — and will — be trained on neural data to decode intention, emotion, and cognition at a resolution no prior technology has approached. Input-capable BCIs raise the stakes further: where output BCIs read from the brain, input BCIs write to it — and AI-driven feedback loops could enable externally modulated cognition at scale, a qualitative leap from behavioral modification to what Zuboff termed instrumentarian power.

This proposal does not argue that legal mandates will compel BCI adoption. The more urgent and realistic threat is structural coercion — the same quiet mechanism by which the internet, the smartphone, and social media became de facto prerequisites for employment, civic access, and social belonging. No law forced that outcome. Market dynamics did. AI-enhanced BCIs will follow the same diffusion logic, only faster.

Key takeaways for attendees:

- AI is the critical intermediary that converts neural data into behavioral predictions — making neurotechnology a direct extension of existing AI surveillance infrastructure

- Neural data is categorically distinct from existing behavioral data and demands a new legal framework

- Structural coercion, not legal compulsion, is the near-term threat to neurotechnological autonomy

- The emerging legal question is whether individuals hold a right to decline neural-level integration without forfeiting meaningful participation in social and professional life

Nesty Delgado: Al adentrarnos en el 2026, surge una pregunta determinante para líderes y organizaciones: ¿la inteligencia artificial trabajará contigo… o avanzará sin ti? Esta conferencia aborda ese punto de inflexión, cuestionando los modelos tradicionales de liderazgo y proponiendo un nuevo paradigma donde la Inteligencia Artificial (IA) y la Inteligencia Emocional (IE) convergen para definir el futuro empresarial.

Basado en más de dos décadas liderando proyectos complejos y de alto impacto en Estados Unidos, Puerto Rico y Latinoamérica, esta presentación ofrece un enfoque práctico y centrado en las personas para navegar la transformación impulsada por la IA. Más allá de verla como una herramienta tecnológica, se plantea la IA como un socio estratégico que potencia la toma de decisiones, acelera la ejecución y redefine la cultura organizacional.

Los participantes obtendrán claridad para trascender el miedo y el “hype”, comprendiendo las verdaderas implicaciones de adoptar IA en sus operaciones, liderazgo y equipos. Se presentarán estrategias accionables para integrar la IA en el día a día, fortaleciendo a la vez las capacidades humanas irremplazables como la empatía, el juicio y la ética.

Aprendizajes Clave:

- Por qué el 2026 marca un punto de inflexión en la adopción de la IA

- Un marco práctico para integrar IA sin perder el enfoque humano

- La Inteligencia Emocional como ventaja competitiva en la era de la automatización

- Casos reales y estrategias para aumentar productividad, innovación y ventaja competitiva

- El cambio de mentalidad que requiere el liderazgo para prosperar en un futuro impulsado por IA

Esta conferencia es un llamado claro: los líderes que no evolucionen de forma intencional y estratégica corren el riesgo de quedarse atrás en un mundo que ya está siendo transformado.

11:00 AM
Coffee & Networking · Sponsor Expo
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
BusinessBallroom B
Elsa del PinoPuerto Rico Computer Services

The AI-Powered Creative: Do More, Look Bigger, Stay Human

How creative teams use AI to do more, look bigger than their budget, and keep the human touch that makes work memorable.
TechnicalRoom 209
Filomeno GonzálezDatabricks

Ship a Production AI App in Two Weeks

A method to build a full-stack Databricks app with Lakebase, AI agents and MCP servers, from idea to production in two weeks.
Read the full description

Methodology to build full stack Databricks Apps with Lakebase, AI, and many more tools like MCP servers, trackmaster PRD, Agents, Skills, all working to make your Databricks App a reality in just two weeks.

SocietyRoom 208
OWTLWEliezer Fontánez · Visual Artist & Illustrator

Taste Cannot Be Prompted

12:15 PM
Lunch · Sponsor Expo · Hackathon Judging
2:15 – 3:15 PMKeynote & Business AI Panel · Ballroom B
2:15 · RemarksBallroom B
Wilmer Reyes BerríosSenator · Chair, Senate Committee on Science, Technology & AI

Remarks

Remarks from the Chair of the Senate Committee on Science, Technology and AI on Puerto Rico's approach to AI policy.
2:35 · PresentationBallroom B
Gauthier VasseurUC Berkeley · Fisher Center for AI

Beyond AI: Building AI-Capable Organizations

AI is one piece of a bigger shift. The foundations (data, governance, process, mindset) that separate lasting AI transformations from costly letdowns.
Read the full description

AI is not the future of analytics. It is only one piece of a much larger transformation.

While headlines focus on Generative AI, leading organizations are quietly combining Business Intelligence, Machine Learning, Generative AI, and Autonomous Agents to create faster, smarter, and more adaptive decision-making systems. Yet technology alone rarely delivers lasting results.

In this session, Gauthier Vasseur explores the foundations that separate successful transformations from expensive disappointments: FAIR data, data quality, governance, lean process design, and the critical distinction between deterministic and non-deterministic systems.

Through practical examples and real-world lessons from Silicon Valley and global enterprises, participants will learn how to orchestrate these technologies responsibly, identify where each creates the most value, and build organizations capable of continuous learning and innovation.

The session concludes with the most important ingredient of all: cultivating a growth mindset rooted in curiosity, experimentation, and entrepreneurial thinking—the true catalyst behind sustainable transformation.

2:55 · PanelBallroom B
Moderated by Gauthier VasseurWith Sai Ramamoorthy · HPE, Gary Crisci · Caprus AI and Pavan Agarwal · Celligence / Sun West Mortgage

Turning AI into Business Results

HPE, Caprus AI and Celligence join Gauthier Vasseur on what it really takes to turn AI into business results: people, data and process, not just models.
20 minutes per presenter, followed by 20 minutes of moderated panel
3:30 – 4:15 PM
Business · Main StageBallroom B
Hackathon Finalist DemosEmceed by Pedro Cruz, Hackathon Lead

The best builds of the weekend, live in Ballroom B

The best hackathon teams demo what they built since Thursday's kickoff, live on the main stage. Winners are announced at the closing keynote.
TechnicalRoom 209
Gary CrisciCaprus AI

Smart Models, Naive Systems: Context Engineering for the Enterprise

Enterprise AI often fails because the model doesn't know the business. Why context engineering belongs in your enterprise architecture.
Read the full description

Many enterprise AI deployments fail not because the model is wrong, but because it doesn't know the business. This session examines context engineering, the discipline that has emerged in 2025–2026 to govern what an AI sees at inference time, and the case for treating it as enterprise architecture rather than as a prompt-tuning exercise.

Society · PanelRoom 208
Carlos Montañez, CPA (moderator) + Alexander Pazo + Alan Taveras + Andreica MaldonadoMunicipio de San Juan · CUD · Invest Puerto Rico

Economic Development & AI

San Juan, CUD and Invest Puerto Rico on how AI can drive economic development, attract investment and help local businesses grow.
4:15 PM
Coffee & Networking · Move to Ballroom B
4:45 – 6:00 PMClosing Keynote
BusinessBallroom B
Idoia SalazarPresident · OdiseIA · AI Advisor to EU Parliament

Ethics & EU Regulation: the Global Playbook

Why ethics matters for AI, how the EU AI Act works, and what Spain is doing on AI governance, from one of the people who helped build it.
Read the full description

El uso de la Inteligencia Artificial hoy día no es opcional. Su potencial es indudable pero también lo es su posible riesgo si no cuidamos los principios éticos desde su diseño. Basándose en los principios éticos internacionales en IA, la UE ha desarrollado una regulación, de obligado cumplimiento, aplicable a los sistemas de Alto Riesgo, con el objetivo de fomentar la confianza y la excelencia en el marco de la UE. Dicho marco está sirviendo de referencia en todo el mundo. La ponencia explica esta necesidad de ética en la IA, explica la regulación europea en IA, e indica las medidas que está aplicando España para su gobernanza, en la que la ponente ha estado directamente involucrada: Sandbox regulatorio en IA, sello Nacional en IA y Agencia de Supervisión de algoritmos. Explica, además, otras medidas necesarias de gobernanza para maximizar el impacto positivo de esta revoucionaria tecnología.

TechnicalBallroom B
Kay Firth-ButterfieldFormer Head of AI, World Economic Forum

The Global State of AI: Governance, Risk & What's Next

The former head of AI at the World Economic Forum on the global state of AI: where governance stands, the risks that matter most, and what's next.
Plus the Hackathon Awards Ceremony
Made for you · Hecho para ti

Whoever you are. This Summit is yours.

Leaders. Builders. Founders. Students. Diaspora. The curious. If AI is moving your world, this is your place.

If you lead.

C-Suite, directors, founders. The next chapter of AI in the Caribbean is being shaped here. The first ones in the room set the direction.

VIP · Business

If you build.

Devs, AI engineers, data scientists. You don't have to leave to work at the frontier. The frontier came home — and this is your stage.

Technical · Hackathon

If you're raising.

Founders, VCs, family offices. You walk into the room when it's still forming. Everyone will say they were early — be the one who was.

VIP · Networking

If you're starting out.

Students, newcomers. You're not here to watch. You're here to make your first demo in front of the people who can hire you, fund you, or build with you.

Learning · Hackathon

If you're diaspora.

You left for opportunity. Opportunity came home. You come back to see what's being built — and to lead the next chapter.

Comunidad

If AI intrigues you.

No prior experience needed. Just curiosity. You leave understanding where the world is heading — and where you fit.

Learning
The epicenter · El epicentro

Why Puerto Rico?

Where the Caribbean meets the U.S. Where Spanish and English coexist without translation. Where the next chapter of AI is being written.

El Morro, San Juan, Puerto Rico

The bridge.

3.5 hours from NYC, 2.5 from Miami, no passport or currency change. Puerto Rico is the Caribbean's window to the United States — and the U.S.'s door to Latin America.

Puerto Rico Convention Center

The venue.

Puerto Rico Convention Center — the largest, most modern in the Caribbean. 580,000 sq ft, world-class AV. 5 min from Condado, 15 from Old San Juan, 10 from SJU airport.

Caribbean AI Summit

The moment.

The Caribbean's first AI summit. You're walking in when it's still forming. Next year won't be the first. This one will.

  • Puerto Rico Convention Center · 100 Bulevar Saint John, Isla Grande, San Juan, PR 00907
  • October 9 & 10, 2026 · Registration 8:00 AM · Event 9:00 AM–6:00 PM
  • Real-time bilingual EN/ES subtitles — no headsets needed.
  • Valet $18/day · 18+ event · Fast Wi-Fi + charging stations.
Who backs us

The brands building Caribbean AI.

Thank you to every sponsor and partner who made the first Caribbean AI Summit possible.

Title
Caribbean AI Summit by Liberty Business
Gold +
Caprus AI
Gold
dfx5 and AWS, joint sponsorsHPE, Hewlett Packard EnterpriseHello Media
Hackathon Sponsor
Centro Unido de Detallistas, Puerto Rico
Supporting Hackathon Sponsor
akcelita
Silver
JetBrainsW@W DigitalPharos SolutionsMunicipio Autónomo de San JuanEmprendimiento Capital, Municipio de San JuanRizq
Bronze
FusionworksEstrella, LLC, Attorneys & CounselorsOm Aura MediaMultiSystems
Community partners and collaborators
PRAIC, Puerto Rico AI CommunityEnalcaHolberton Coding SchoolProaktiva Financial StrategiesMusikaiAsociación de Marketing, UAGM Recinto de CupeyCiprés LLC, CPASeguros CUDVesper P4, Universidad Politécnica de Puerto RicoCámara de Comercio de Puerto Rico
FAQ

What you need to know.

What language will the event be in?

Bilingual ES/EN. Live captions in both languages via PowerPoint 365 — no headsets required.

What does the General Admission ticket include?

Full 2-day access, all 3 tracks, 5 keynotes, 20+ sessions, networking, expo, coffee breaks both days.

What's the refund policy?

Tickets are non-refundable. You can transfer to another person up to 48h before the event — email caribbeanaisummit@gmail.com.

Is there parking?

Yes. Convention Center valet: $18/day. Rideshare and taxi available (~$20 from SJU airport).

Age requirement?

18+. University students with valid ID get a discount — reach out to caribbeanaisummit@gmail.com.

How do I join the hackathon?

Your ticket gives access. Teams of 2–4, formed on-site Day 1. Theme: AI for Puerto Rico. $10K in prizes.

Group discounts?

Yes, for groups of 5+. Email caribbeanaisummit@gmail.com with the headcount and names.

How do I sponsor?

For sponsorships (tiers $3K–$50K) or any inquiry, email us at caribbeanaisummit@gmail.com. Speaker selection for 2026 is closed.

Thank you for being part of it

"The Future Starts with Better Questions."

To every attendee, speaker, sponsor, volunteer and hackathon team who made the first Caribbean AI Summit happen: thank you. The conversation keeps going in the PRAIC community.