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AI in Education MiniSummit
A Tech Ranch conversation on what is actually working in the classroom, and what is coming next
Tuesday, July 14, 2026 | 3:00 – 4:30pm CDT | Live on Zoom
Everyone agrees AI is going to reshape education. Far fewer people can tell you what that looks like on a Tuesday morning in a real classroom. This MiniSummit brings together educators, founders, and practitioners who are doing the actual work, so you can hear what is happening now, not just the hype.
Moderated by Kevin Koym, founder of Tech Ranch, the panel will dig into questions like: Where is the gap between what schools teach and what the workforce needs, and can AI help close it? How are teachers, students, and administrators really using AI day to day? What do we make of the counter-trends, the schools going back to paper, banning phones, and blocking AI altogether? And what does great AI-era education look like for the next generation of students and builders?
Come with your own questions. This is meant to be a working conversation, not a lecture.
Who you will hear from
Jenn Clemente is Principal Consultant at Raizon-8 and the 2025 event board co-chair of the Austin AI Alliance. A former foreign correspondent who covered the Balkan wars, she specializes in corporate storytelling, strategic communications, and AI strategy, with past roles at D-Wave Quantum, VMware, and IBM. She recently led the first-of-its-kind DreamBuilders workshop, teaching 4th through 8th graders at Alpha School in Brownsville to turn their dreams into AI-generated films.
Tonja O’Neill is a strategic technology leader who spans both worlds this summit is about. After a career in software development, program management, and business consulting, including founding her firm Soverex, she moved into the classroom to teach Computer Science, Mathematics, and Finance at the high school level. There she led an AI pilot program, gave students a real-world defect-tracking experience, and built two distinct six-week programming curricula: one taking students from Python fundamentals through an original data project, concept to data-gathering to finished product, entirely without AI; the other built around using AI as an amplifier, where students learned to debug AI-generated code and direct AI to architect an original program to their own vision. She also advised district leadership on tech curricula and EdTech platform selection. She holds an MBA from UT Austin and a BS in Computer Science from Texas A&M, and is a Certified ScrumMaster and Distinguished Toastmaster.
Tom Haymes is a technologist, educator, and social scientist, and the author of Learn at Your Own Risk and Discovering Digital Humanity. He was the design lead for Houston Community College’s West Houston Institute and has served as Storyteller in Residence for Arizona State University’s ShapingEDU Project. Through his practice IdeaSpaces, he helps institutions rethink how learning happens in physical and digital environments.
Steven Galbraith is founder of Tappy, a Tampa-based edtech company. Tappy is a 24/7 AI tutoring platform for K-12 students in math, science, and language arts, giving students personalized, step-by-step help while showing teachers real-time dashboards of student progress. He is a strong advocate for transparent, “no black box” AI in learning.
Hosted by Tech Ranch Austin. Free to attend. The session will be recorded.