Event Details

Join us for an International Executive Roundtable featuring the authors of "AI for the Rest of Us" Phaedra Boinodiris & Beth Rudden.

This lecture will take place during Professor Julie Lockwood's INTB 6600 Blockchain and Emerging Technologies class and is open to all CU Denver students, staff, and faculty to attend.

Program Overview

In 2023, Phaedra Boinodiris and Beth Rudden co-authored AI for the Rest of Us because they saw a dangerous gap: critical information about AI was being systematically left out of the conversation. Now, as the hype cycle crashes into reality, that missing information is coming to light—and the timing couldn't be more urgent.

Join IBM's Trustworthy AI leader and the CEO of Bast AI for an honest conversation about what's actually happening in AI deployment right now. Phaedra will share what she's learning from teaching AI literacy globally through layers of impact analysis and functional requirements mapping.

Beth will discuss what it actually takes to build certainty into AI systems—and why most organizations still don't understand what they're asking for.

Together, they'll explore: 

• What the end of the hype cycle reveals about what we got wrong
• Why AI literacy isn't optional anymore (and what real literacy actually looks like)
• The gap between what organizations think they need and what will actually work in their environments
• Why 2026 might be the year everything changes—and what students entering this field need to know

This is a conversation between two practitioners who've been in the trenches, watched the patterns emerge, and aren't interested in vendor narratives. Expect practical frameworks, hard truths, and real talk about building AI systems that don't just perform—but that you can actually trust and explain.

International Executive Roundtables and CU Denver’s IIB International Executive Roundtables are hosted by CU Denver’s Institute for International Business (IIB) with support from the Carole Ann Jemal-Gibson and Greg Gibson Fund.

Questions Email Kaela Kalabany at [email protected] with any questions.