ECTC’s Parrett attends invitation-only AI summit in Silicon Valley

Elizabethtown Community and Technical College Computer and Information Technology Professor Kevin Parrett visited the forefront of artificial intelligence development last week. As a member of the curated audience that was invitation-only or application-approved, Parrett said, the Imagination in Action Silicon Valley AI Summit provided him with an opportunity to bring a unique perspective back to the college and its students.

The conference, held Sept. 14–15 inside Google’s Bay View campus in Mountain View, Calif., in collaboration with Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, brought together AI founders, CEOs, researchers, engineers, investors, academics and technology leaders to discuss what organizers called “The Next Endeavor” — the next stage of AI.

“I applied for it on a whim, and I forgot about it because I never thought I’d be invited,” Parrett said. “I was very proud to be among the educators selected to attend and to represent ECTC.”
The summit combined executive discussions, startup pitches, frontier research and live technology demonstrations, giving attendees direct access to people actively developing and studying the technology, Parrett said.

“The conference wasn’t just about what AI is now, but also about what it might become someday. Attendees had an incredible opportunity to see what AI can accomplish, where it’s headed, and the technological, economic and safety challenges that come with such rapid advancement,” Parrett said.

Programming took place across five stages and covered AI hardware and computing, agentic AI, robotics, scientific discovery, new industries, entrepreneurship, the future of work, leadership, governance, security and the broader effects of increasingly capable AI on society. Speakers represented organizations including Google and Google DeepMind, NVIDIA, Stanford, MIT, Cerebras, Sony AI, X/The Moonshot Factory, Meta and many others.

“Attending a conference of this renown is an honor for both Professor Parrett and ECTC, and it is a recognition of his expertise in the Computer and Information Technology field,” said ECTC Dean of Physical Sciences and Related Technologies Dr. Shawn Kellie. “Most importantly, the connections made and the knowledge gained will be an asset to our students.”