Events

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just for large tech companies — it’s a powerful, practical tool that small businesses can use today. This engaging and accessible webinar demystifies AI and shows entrepreneurs how it can serve as a true “force multiplier,” helping small teams operate like much larger organizations.

From machine learning and computer vision to generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, you’ll explore how AI is transforming industries, including retail, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation. More importantly, you’ll discover how these technologies can be applied to customer service, marketing, operations, data analysis, and workflow automation within your own business.

This session also addresses real-world concerns around AI bias, security, ethics, and data privacy — equipping you to adopt AI responsibly and strategically. Whether you’re an AI novice or ready to experiment with advanced tools, you’ll walk away with practical knowledge and clear next steps.

What You’ll Learn:

• The difference between AI and automation — and why it matters
• How machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI work in simple terms
• Real-world business use cases for AI across multiple industries
• How to use prompt engineering to get better results from tools like ChatGPT
• The role of data in AI accuracy, fairness, and performance
• How to evaluate AI tools (no-code vs. code-based solutions)
• Key risks including bias, hallucinations, and security concerns — and how to mitigate them
• How to start small and implement AI for immediate business impact

Recent disruptions—from pandemics to infrastructure failures to (rapidly) changing trade policies —have exposed critical vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain. These challenges demand coordinated, data-informed responses that bridge the gap between siloed operations and system-wide visibility, and yet be privacy preserving. This workshop will convene experts from academia, industry, and government to address the vision laid out in the OKN Roadmap: an Open Knowledge Network (OKN) to enable real-time visibility and resilience across the national supply chain.

The workshop will be structured around three concrete supply chain scenarios: water supply, manufacturing contracts and freight transportation. For each of these scenarios, we will assess the state of practice and emerging challenges. We will use that information to formulate concrete project proposals to accelerate their solutions.

Registration fee is $215. Fee includes: AM Break and Snacks, Lunch on both days, PM Break and Snack and Dinner on March 9. Registration will close by COB March 3, 2026.

This presentation will walk small business owners through the basics of (i) why cybersecurity is important; (ii) high level cybersecurity and privacy obligations a business owner might have; (iii) steps business owners can take to help protect their business and their customers; and (iv) what to do in the case of a cybersecurity incident.

Explore advanced cybersecurity tactics to strengthen your business against ever-evolving threats. In this no-fee webinar, we will guide you beyond the Cybersecurity Basics trainings into a deeper exploration of essential topics for building cyber resilience.

Join us for this webinar hosted by the NorCal Small Business Development Center. Zack Barton will lead a discussion with renowned cybersecurity specialist, Jacob Blacksten, to highlight the importance of password management, multi-factor authentication, emergency response plans, and staff training within today's digital space.

This workshop will discuss emerging and future trends for IoT technologies and their implications for IoT cybersecurity. As IoT becomes more sophisticated, automated and ubiquitous, it becomes increasingly important for IoT cybersecurity considerations to keep pace with emerging risks and threats.

Over two days, the workshop will feature presentations and discussions on many IoT topics, including Federal sector concerns as the NIST Cybersecurity for IoT program works on preparing to update NIST SP 800-213, considerations for federal healthcare use cases, emerging use cases for IoT in the private sector, and the increasing automation of IoT and integration of IoT with AI technologies.

Learn how to prevent and protect from data loss and data leakage resulting from cyber threats. At the end of the course, participants will have multiple, actionable steps to both recognize attacks as well as new behaviors that will thwart attacks.