<\/p>\n
(Left to right) Dr. Cameron Ford and entrepreneur Kanwal Rekhi address attendees about artificial intelligence during a panel discussion on Wednesday at the Live Oak Event Center. The India Center invited Kanwal to share how automation can spark historic startup growth by making company creation more affordable.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Fabian Arcila <\/p>\n
A crowded Live Oak Event Center audience gathered Wednesday to hear Silicon Valley entrepreneur Kanwal Rekhi discuss artificial intelligence and the future of startup creation at The India Center\u2019s Annual India Lecture Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cTools don\u2019t make the business,\u201d Rekhi said. \u201cTools are a means to an end. In the end, it is a customer problem that you\u2019re solving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rekhi said the key for emerging entrepreneurs was recognizing that generative software and algorithms could not substitute for human instinct and strategic positioning.<\/p>\n
Sachin Budda, junior finance major, said he learned about the talk through his coursework and felt drawn to attend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw it posted on my class page, and you know, I\u2019m Indian, so I saw some gravitation towards it,\u201d Budda said. \u201cI was like, \u2018You know what? Why not?\u2019 I just rushed over here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Budda said hearing about Rekhi\u2019s career gave him a clearer perspective on career resilience and using new technologies deliberately.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough AI is super impressive when it comes to academics and studying, learning for your tests right now in college, it\u2019s super helpful, but it\u2019s interesting to see how it will play off in real life, especially in the work environment and in entrepreneurship,\u201d Budda said.<\/p>\n
The India Center hosted Rekhi, cofounder of Excelan and seasoned venture capitalist, to examine how modern tools lowered the operational costs of launching companies while expanding access to entrepreneurship. Dr. Cameron Ford, founding director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and executive director of the UCF Blackstone LaunchPad, moderated the discussion.<\/p>\n
During the conversation, Ford noted that technical disruptions had consistently lowered the minimum team sizes required to launch viable companies over the past three decades. Ford asked Rekhi if modern artificial intelligence served as a uniquely high leverage tool for startups compared to past eras.<\/p>\n
Rekhi agreed, explaining that while large legacy corporations moved slowly due to bureaucratic inertia, small startups could use automated software to quickly test prototypes and execute concepts with fewer resources.<\/p>\n
“Oh, absolutely, AI is a good mile stock, you know, Rekhi said. “AI is a way to execute your vision.”<\/p>\n
However, Rekhi warned students not to let technical software become their venture\u2019s sole value proposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not let technology be the only differentiation in your mind, because everybody has that,\u201d Rekhi said. \u201cYour advantage is you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andy Pham, senior health sciences major and federal work-study student at The India Center, helped organize and coordinate the event setup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is probably the most amount of people I have ever seen at an India Center event,\u201d Pham said. \u201cWe got a very common speaker to come in from California, so I think it went very, very successful, and it seems like a lot of people were engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ed Barreto, senior international relations major and research assistant at The India Center, said the lecture drew an engaged group of attendees who participated actively during the audience discussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe turnout was, as Andy said, probably one of the highest that we had for the India Center,\u201d Barreto said. \u201cWe had a good discussion between the speaker and the students, which isn\u2019t always the case. Today, they actually engaged with the topic at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pham said student engagement regarding resource use and societal impact was one of the lecture\u2019s most striking moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most interesting and surprising thing I heard today was when students questioned the environmental impact of AI,\u201d Pham said.<\/p>\n
Barreto said he hoped the turnout would encourage students to continue attending international and cross-cultural programming across campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more the students show up, the better it is for us and it is for them,\u201d Barreto said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a win; the better the event goes, hopefully more students come back for more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Left to right) Dr. Cameron Ford and entrepreneur Kanwal Rekhi address attendees about artificial intelligence during a panel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1210,139,141,140,1211],"class_list":["post-421147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-life","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-student_organizations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}