Registration and Morning Refreshments

General Vessey Ballroom

Opening Remarks

Chesapeake Ballroom

James Saunders, State Chief Information Security Officer, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Keynote – EMBRACE THE SHAKE: Transforming Limitations into Opportunities

Chesapeake Ballroom

Success, especially in today’s fast-changing business environment, depends on our ability to make creativity and innovation a continuous process. Leaders want to know how their teams can rise above any challenge and succeed no matter what comes their way. Whether the goal is to embrace change, overcome obstacles, sustain growth, or take your success to the next level, leaders and teams want to learn how to “Embrace the Shake.” The term “Embrace the Shake” is coined from artist Phil Hansen’s personal story of transformation. After developing a career-ending tremor in his drawing hand, Phil embraced his “shake” both physically and metaphorically by redefining his limitation as an impetus for creativity. Phil not only restored his artistic abilities, but he also became a much more creative and innovative artist than ever before. Phil’s powerful message of finding creativity within limitations will inspire you to stop looking outside and start looking within for the resources that can transform your challenges into opportunities for success.

Phil Hansen, Artist, Speaker, Author and Innovator

Sponsored By: Celonis Inc, VMware by Broadcom | Carahsoft

General Session – Product > Project: Maryland’s New Theory of Change

Chesapeake Ballroom

For decades, large government IT projects across the United States—Maryland included—have followed a predictable, high-risk pattern: they cost too much, take too long, and struggle to deliver the services citizens deserve. This session examines the state’s shift away from project-centric thinking toward a service delivery model that puts resident experience at the center. Speakers will address the IT master plan’s core pillars — talent, centralization, and design — and discuss the practical work underway. This lower-risk approach prioritizes starting small, delivering working software early and often, measuring impact, and continuously improving based on user feedback and outcomes.

Jennifer Smith, Technical Program Manager, Maryland Digital Service, State of Maryland

Networking Break in the Exhibit Area

General Vessey Ballroom

Concurrent Sessions

The State of AI [first half of session]

Meeting Room 1105

We are living through a historic shift. Just as steam, electricity, and information technology reshaped the world in previous centuries, artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era — the era of cognition. This session demystifies the state of AI by exploring how it is solving humanity's most complex challenges, from vaccine discovery to urban transportation management. Attendees will discover secure, full-stack AI infrastructure with federal-grade compliance, look ahead to an agentic future where collaborative AI agents work alongside us, and get a behind-the-scenes look at how leading organizations deploy their own AI to drive radical productivity.

Chris Hein, Field CTO and Technical Director, Google Public Sector

From Prompting to Delegating [second half of session]

Meeting Room 1105

This session shares how the public sector is leading a new era of innovation. Attendees will get an introduction to the latest generation of frontier models — the most powerful yet, built on a foundation of agentic reasoning and multimodality — and see how no-code agents grounded in enterprise data can automate work using a library of pre-built tools and actions. The session closes with a practical look at getting started, walking through an agent catalog and real day-one use cases drawn from state government.

Cameron Groves, Director of Rapid Innovation and Specialist Engineering (RISE), Google Public Sector

We Know What to Do — Now How Do We Do It? Data, Platforms, and Implementation Tips for Digital Services Teams

Meeting Room 1101/1102

Digital service strategies are written in boardrooms but live or die with the teams building the portals, forms, and systems behind them — and none of it works without the data underneath. This session is for the practitioners doing that work. Expect a frank conversation about breaking down silos, standing up shared platforms, and getting clean, trusted data into the hands of the teams building services

Moderator: Zach Thorn, Senior National Conference Director, Government Technology

Natalie Harris, State Chief Data Officer, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Marcy Jacobs, Deputy Secretary, Chief Digital Experience Officer, State of Maryland

Shannon Pierce, General Manager, Maryland, Tyler Technologies

Building a Workforce Ready for What’s Next

Meeting Room 2101

The pace of change in government technology has outrun most training programs — and the gap between the tools agencies are deploying and the skills their people have to use them is widening. This session focuses on practical approaches to workforce development that actually stick: how to assess where your organization stands, how to build internal champions who can carry learning across departments, how to design training that reaches people at different levels of technical comfort, and how to make the case for sustained investment in upskilling when budgets are tight. The conversation draws on real examples from across state and local government and leaves room for attendees to share what's working — and what isn't — on their own teams.

Moderator: Stephanie Garland, Data Literacy Director, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Carolyn Basista, Senior Director of Information Security, University of Maryland Global Campus

Sandra Longs Hasty, Chief Learning Officer, Prince George’s County

Seeyew Mo, Senior Advisor, Cyber Maryland Program

Stephen Pereira, Chief Information Officer, Calvert County

Privacy and Data: Building the Foundation for Secure Information Sharing

Meeting Room 2102

Data-mature agencies that get this right are the ones that can move faster, share more confidently, and avoid the kind of headline-making incidents that set everyone back. This session cuts through the compliance-speak to talk practically about what good data governance actually looks like on the ground: how to get a real handle on what data you have and who should be touching it, how to build privacy protections that actually get followed, and how to make data sharing between state and local partners work without introducing new vulnerabilities in the process. Bring your messiest data problem — this is a judgment-free zone.

Moderator: LaShonda Henderson, County Data Manager, Division Manager, Data Management and Analytics, Office of Information Technology, Prince George’s County

Julia Fischer, Deputy State Chief Data Officer, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Caterina Pangilinan, State Chief Privacy Officer, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Chris Wildgoose, Data Governance Leader, IBM

Lunch

Chesapeake Ballroom

General Session – The Smart Case for Change: Responsible AI and Sustainable Modernization

Chesapeake Ballroom

As AI reshapes how state agencies process information, serve residents, and allocate resources, government leaders must distinguish where the technology delivers genuine value from where it introduces risk. This session explores how responsible AI adoption depends on a governance framework balancing innovation with accountability, transparency, and equity, and why the states seeing the greatest impact began with high-volume, rules-based processes before tackling more complex use cases. Panelists will examine why successful modernization is less about replacing old technology than rethinking agency structure, data flow, and workforce readiness—and will make the fiscal case by drawing on shared services models that have delivered measurable savings in peer states. Attendees will leave with practical strategies for incorporating AI responsibly and aligning stakeholders around the initiatives that matter most.

Short Break

Please proceed to the concurrent sessions

Concurrent Sessions

AI Discovery: Lessons From the Front Lines of Constituent Engagement

Meeting Room 2101

Deploying AI in resident-facing services creates a different set of challenges than deploying it internally — the stakes are higher, the user base is less forgiving, and the consequences of a bad experience land directly on public trust. This session examines what early adoption actually looks like in practice: the implementation decisions that turned out to matter most, the outcomes nobody planned for, how staff responded when their workflows changed, and what metrics agencies are using to determine whether something is actually working. The conversation is grounded in real deployments across state and local government, with honest discussion of where AI has delivered and where expectations needed to be recalibrated.

Moderator: Michael Boyce, Senior AI Advisor, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Pat McLoughlin, Executive Director, MDTHINK

Dave Sloan, Chief Information Officer, Department of Human Services, State of Maryland

Who’s Afraid of AI? Busting Myths and Clarifying What’s Actually Permissible

Meeting Room 1101/1102

Across the country, the same anxieties keep surfacing: Is using AI for this task allowed? What if the output is wrong? Who’s liable? This session tackles those questions directly, separating fact from fiction on the most common misconceptions about what AI can and cannot be used for in a government context. Panelists will walk through the guardrails that have been established, the tools that are at our disposal, and ultimately explain state and local governments are evolving to make use of these technologies.

Moderator: Lauren Maffeo, Senior AI/ML Program Manager, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Sachin Bhatt, Director, AI/ML Governance and Policy, Department of Information Technology, State of Maryland

Stephen Pereira, Chief Information Officer, Calvert County

Identity, Fraud, and the Future of Digital Trust in Government Services

Meeting Room 2102

The fraud landscape facing government agencies has changed significantly: rings are more dispersed, identities are easier to fabricate, and the pressure points have shifted to corners of government that weren’t previously high-risk targets — including education benefits, where ghost student schemes have become an increasing concern. This session examines where fraud is heading across the full identity lifecycle, from enrollment and eligibility verification through ongoing account management and re-authentication. Panelists will discuss how fraud tactics are evolving, what detection capabilities agencies need to keep pace, and how identity proofing strategies can be strengthened without creating friction that drives away legitimate residents. Designed for agency leaders responsible for benefits administration, eligibility programs, and digital identity infrastructure.

Jason Yoo, Senior Solution Consultant, Socure

Exclusive Briefing for Industry Partners

Meeting Room 1105

Networking Break in the Exhibit Area

General Vessey Ballroom

General Session - Key Innovations in Enterprise AI

Chesapeake Ballroom

Key highlights from this year's major AI announcements: foundation models, AI agents, and developer velocity. Experience the latest generation of frontier models, including lightweight and high-performance variants as well as fully multimodal options, with a focus on improved reasoning, coding, and multimodality. Explore enterprise agent platforms for building and scaling AI agents, with attention to security, data connectivity, and governance, as well as workflow agents and visual agent design tools. We'll also discuss the newest agentic development environments and highlight the power of standalone desktop experiences and command-line tools for power users. Finally, we'll introduce proactive, always-on AI agents that integrate with common enterprise systems such as IT service management, CRM, and project-tracking platforms. We'll cover the broader AI ecosystem impact and the road ahead for developers and businesses, followed by an open Q&A session.

Deon James, Cloud AI Specialist Customer Engineer & GPS AI/ML Expertise Badged Partner Tech Lead, Google

Mike Snodgrass, AI Specialist, Google

Networking Reception in the Exhibit Area

General Vessey Ballroom

Network with your colleagues and discuss technology solutions with the event sponsors.

End of Conference

Conference times, agenda, and speakers are subject to change.