Pueblo Community College (PCC) brought together nearly 200 educators, industry professionals, and technology partners for the SoCo & AI Conference on November 14 at its Pueblo campus. The event focused on the influence of artificial intelligence in education, healthcare, and workforce development across southern Colorado.
Chato Hazelbaker, president of PCC, opened the conference before introducing presenters from several institutions including Front Range Community College, Pikes Peak State College, Arapahoe Community College, CSU Pueblo, and the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. The speakers addressed a range of topics such as AI ethics and literacy, streamlining administrative tasks with AI tools, personalizing artificial intelligence applications, and the implications of AI on financial aid fraud.
Keynote addresses were delivered by France Hoang and Dr. Evelinn Borrayo. Hoang is founder and CEO of BoodleBox—a collaborative AI operating system designed for higher education. PCC has recently entered into a partnership with BoodleBox to provide its services to all students and employees at the college. Dr. Borrayo is a professor at the Colorado School of Public Health and associate director at the University of Colorado Cancer Center at CU-Anschutz. She also co-leads AIM-AHEAD (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity), an initiative created by the National Institutes of Health.
After the daylong conference concluded, regional business leaders attended an on-campus dinner where they heard from a panel of PCC educators about how artificial intelligence is affecting local businesses and how PCC is preparing students for future workforce needs through its use of AI technologies. According to PCC officials, members of the college’s AI committee have been guiding these initiatives for over a year.
The conference was sponsored by BoodleBox, Zoom, and HP.
