Talks, panels, and workshops from the 2025 New Orleans Arts & Ideas Festival. Select a talk below to read more about it.
Sunday, November 9, 2025
9:45 AM
Opening Remarks
Jakeel Abdullah
10:00 AM
The Future of AI flows through Louisiana by Curtis Cummings
Curtis Cummings
10:00 AM
No Robot! Teaching toddlers about AI by Blake Bertuccelli-Booth
Blake Bertuccelli-Booth
10:30 AM
DebateLab.xyz: Revolutionizing Civil Discourse in the Digital Age by Barrington K Hebert
Barrington K Hebert
10:30 AM
AI’s Green Revolution: Debunking Myths and Unlocking Environmental Solutions by Knud Berthelsen
Knud Berthelsen
11:00 AM
It’s PostgreSQL all the way down by Christopher Aitken
Christopher Aitken
11:30 AM
AI and Sustainability: Perpetual Adversaries or Ultimate Collaborators? by Mike Sammartino
Mike Sammartino
11:30 AM
Just Chat It, Bro by Jackson Dirks
Jackson Dirks
12:00 PM
PANEL: SustAInability in Action: AI, Policy, and Power
Johnnie James II
2:00 PM
Rolling with Randomness: The Creative Chaos of WCMX & Adaptive Skate by Antonio Torres (Tony)
Antonio Torres (Tony)
2:00 PM
Engineering in a Post AI World by Daryl Roberts
Daryl Roberts
3:00 PM
Biomimicry: Using Nature to Develop New Technologies by Noshir Pesika
Noshir Pesika
3:30 PM
Ecological AI: Imagining an alternative alignment by Delaney Martin
Delaney Martin
3:30 PM
AI’s Role in Transforming Music & Film by DOMONIQUE-ALPHONZO STALEY
DOMONIQUE-ALPHONZO STALEY
4:00 PM
“VIBE Coding Revolution: Building Industry Diversity Through AI Co-Creation” by Sonthia Coleman
Sonthia Coleman
4:30 PM
AI Cowboys & Louisiana Swamp Monsters by Alex Cotant
Alex Cotant
4:30 PM
human chess in the age of ai by baylee badawy
baylee badawy
5:00 PM
Mary Hubbard, WordPress Executive Director (Fireside Chat)
Mary Hubbard
5:00 PM
Creativity With AI by Jimmy Lepore Hagan
Jimmy Lepore Hagan
5:30 PM
Closing Remarks
Jakeel Abdullah
Monday, November 10, 2025
9:45 AM
Opening Remarks
Blake Bertuccelli-Booth
10:00 AM
Hacking AI by Gant Laborde
Gant Laborde
11:00 AM
The Evolution of Education, From Push to Pull in an AI World by Blaine Steven Fisher
Blaine Steven Fisher
12:00 PM
AI in K-12 Education by Stefin Pasternak
Stefin Pasternak
2:00 PM
Activating the Archive: The Intelligent Future of Cultural Data by Joseph S. Makkos
Joseph Makkos
2:30 PM
Rebuilding the LA Economy with Intelligence by Robert Ayala
Robert Ayala
3:30 PM
LLMs for Civic Transparency by Aron Culotta
Aron Culotta
4:00 PM
The Entangled Defense: Cultivating Resilience in the Age of AI by Amanda Hartle
Amanda Hartle
4:00 PM
Passive vs Active AI in Education by Martin Holly
Martin Holly
4:30 PM
The AI-Powered Developer: What Your Job Will Really Look Like by Dustin P Gaspard
Dustin P Gaspard
5:00 PM
Fireside Chat with Josh Fleig (LED) and Matt Wisdom (Civilized.AI)
Josh Fleig and Matt Wisdom
6:00 PM
Closing Remarks
Joseph Makkos
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
9:45 AM
Opening Remarks
sabelo jupiter
10:00 AM
Build Smarter: Creating Software & Apps Without Writing Code by Paul Saputo
Paul Saputo
10:00 AM
A BUNDL of Ambition & Care by Joseph Clay Politz
Joseph Clay Politz
10:30 AM
Gaia’s Children by Tatyana Thompson
Tatyana Thompson
11:00 AM
Algorithms for Care: Using AI to Support Black Maternal Health by Jordan Williams
Jordan Williams
11:30 AM
Entangled Intelligence: The Regenerative AI Stack — retrieval, feedback, and rest cycles that favor living systems. by Dustin Hughes
Dustin Hughes
11:30 AM
AI-Driven Rehabilitation: BioSmart’s Vision for the Future of Medicine by Marzonet Palmer
Marzonet Palmer
12:00 PM
Intelligent Connection: Exploring the Future of Therapy and AI by Michael VanderWaal
Michael VanderWaal
12:00 PM
Agents: Human, Rational and Intelligent by Sabelo Jupiter
Sabelo Jupiter
2:00 PM
DeepAgent Fusion™: Interactive Hybrid‑AI Merch Bundles
Ishmael Amin
2:00 PM
Augmented Trails & Neighborhoods: Place across Time and Space by Jacob Harver
Jacob Harver
2:30 PM
Bootstrap to Breakthrough: Emergent Beauty in Repository-Based Agent Memory by Mark Stark
Mark Stark
2:30 PM
How Vibe Coding Saved My Life! by Charles Handler
charles handler
3:30 PM
Unlocking Revenue with Conversational AI by Yasmine Gardiner
Yasmine Gardiner
3:30 PM
The Surplus of Adjacency: Context, Compression, and the Shape of Intelligence by Rick Montgomery
Rick Montgomery
4:00 PM
Al in Environmental Science Panel: Perspectives from Louisiana’s Leading Nonprofits
Jesse Hoppes, PG
4:30 PM
Code, Bias & Bots: Voices of Operation Spark Alumni Navigating AI’s Future by Johnnie James II
Johnnie James II
5:00 PM
Andy Quick, Entergy, Former Chief AI Officer (Fireside Chat)
6:00 PM
Closing Remarks
Sabelo Jupiter