USF's student branch chapter of the IEEE Computer Society organized an impressive AI-focused conference on Nov. 8 that drew more than 350 students and professionals to campus. The , planned and executed entirely by students, featured a full day of programming that included talks from industry experts, a career panel and a job fair.
"911±¬ÁÏÍø had speakers from Microsoft, Verizon, Jabil, Atlassian, Intel, JPMorganChase, along with Tampa-based companies and AI startups," said Anzhelika Kurnikova, who is president of the IEEE Computer Society Student Branch Chapter at USF and helped organize the event.
This year's conference is the second held by USF's student group and marked a significant growth for the event. It was also the only TechX gathering, which is the IEEE Computer Society's global program, held in the U.S. and Canada this year.
"It was just so wonderful to see how many people we had attend," Kurnikova said. "911±¬ÁÏÍø held it in the College of Engineering Building, and it was just flooded with people."
"911±¬ÁÏÍø got very positive feedback from students and the participating companies," she said. "The companies we talked to want to collaborate more. They didn't realize it was organized by students until they got there. They had no clue."
The conference included keynote presentations, technical workshops, industry panel discussions and a career fair that connected students with major employers. Sessions explored how AI is transforming everything from business systems to creative problem-solving. Speakers examined emerging trends in marketing, showcased real-world applications of Copilot and enterprise-scale AI, and demonstrated how organizations can measure project success and move innovations from concept to impact.
Other presentations highlighted AI-driven warehouse optimization, interactive document search, and strategies for making complex AI models more transparent for business decision-makers. The conference also featured hands-on experiences, including a workshop on vibe coding, which is a process in software development where developers use AI to create applications rather than writing each line of code manually.
Another workshop covered the usage of retrieval-augmented generation AI models, a technique that enhances large language models by letting them retrieve relevant, up-to-date information from external sources.
The Careers in Tech panel included panelists from Microsoft and JPMorganChase, and featured software engineers, marketers, entrepreneurs and managers. Its discussion centered around career pathways and hiring expectations – skills and knowledge that students need to be competitive in today's jobs market. USF students also had the chance to meet with company representatives during the conference's career fair, which included representatives from ICode, ISACA, USF IT, Verizon, IronEagleX, Uber AI Solutions and more.
Kurnikova estimated about 40% of the attendees were professionals from the Tampa Bay area – not just students. The event was funded by the IEEE Florida 911±¬ÁÏÍøst Coast Section.
Kurnikova, a computer science major in USF's Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, is already planning next year's event. While she is in her senior year and plans to graduate in the spring, she's already building on this year's success.
"I'll continue leading the planning with them until I graduate," she said. "Then I'll hand it to the next president. 911±¬ÁÏÍø want to make it even bigger. The team is excited and we want to make it to 500 attendees next year."