Boston AI Week with Judah Phillips
Building AI Boston
Judah Phillips, Chief AI and Product Officer at Market Holdings, discusses the vision and impact of Boston AI Week—a community-driven festiv
Key takeaways
- Boston AI Week was created to foster inclusive, human-centered conversations around AI, emphasizing collaboration across industries, academia, government, and the public.
Main topics
- Building inclusive AI communities
- Scaling grassroots tech events into global phenomena
Notable quotes
"If it was just me, I'd be alone in the seaport." – Judah Phillips on the collective power behind Boston AI Week.
Conclusion
Boston AI Week exemplifies how community-driven initiatives can scale into global
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:07) Our guest today is Judah Phillips, who's the Chief AI and Product Officer at Market Holdings, where his work sits at the intersection of AI deployment, product strategy, investments, commercialization, governance, and ecosystem building. And today we're discussing the upcoming Boston AI Week, where Judah brings Boston's finest to the world. Hey, welcome to the show, my friend. Speaker 1 (0:33) Thanks for having me, Anna and Cara. Speaker 2 (0:35) Hey, that is the shortest resume I can fit around you and what you do. And we're going to break it down for everybody. But I'm really pleased that you're one of the usual suspects, as they say, in your ecosystem. And it's a pleasure to talk about the upcoming event. Can we talk about first how the two of you met? It's so organic to our story, Cara. I interviewed Cara and then I met you through Cara. And why don't you just talk a little bit about how the two of you met? I think it was at an event for generative AI. Speaker 3 (1:07) Yeah. So Judah's like, he's pretty famous in town and sorry to make you blush there, Judah. But like in terms of like people who connect other people around this AI stuff. So I don't remember exactly how long ago it was, maybe about two years. And I was, I had been. you know, in the AI space for a while, but didn't really know too many people, really any people in the space. And somehow his event, it's this really cool event called the Gen AI Meetup. And he has it, holds it at the NERD Center, which has a really good acronym he'll explain. And it came across my desk or whatever. And I was like, oh, I should go to that. And I was really intimidated, actually, because it was like, I thought it was like all MIT people and all this stuff. And I'm like, so I kind of gathered up the strength and courage to go. and then it was awesome and judah was you know running it and it was so inclusive and open and very much like hey you're interested in ai come and talk and there was you know a panel of experts and it was just a really really nice um sort of introduction to the ecosystem and i think it was one of the things that really got me psyched about being part of the the group here so judah thank you for the spark oh Speaker 1 (2:15) well My pleasure. And that's very generous of you. Yeah, it's the Boston generative AI meetup. So I started that in May 2023. Speaker 1 (2:26) work I've done in machine learning and AI really sort of came into more light with the release of ChatGPT 3.5, which I think was in October 2022. And the pandemic was winding down. You know, most of us hadn't really gone out and done a lot of socializing for some time in Boston. So I wanted to create a space where, you know, people could go and network and talk about AI. I've been working in it for so long. I sort of long for that connection after the pandemic. So I partnered with Microsoft and New England Research and Development Center, the NERD, and launched the event. I thought like 30 or 40 people would show up. So I negotiated uh five pizzas for four deal from harum's number two which is a local pizzeria that's been around forever in cambridge and uh like 320 people showed up so uh you know it was during one of those early events um that i met cara and cara is very compelling as you know and a ceo of an ai company that's uh really you know doing um even better than it's ever done before and uh the format is well back then it was a little different but um i moderate a panel of experts that i select and uh i by the time i think cara arrived i had inverted it where i call it invoking my inner phil donahue so i go to the audience Speaker 3 (3:57) totally and Speaker 1 (3:59) have the audience ask the questions as i carry around a mic and you know make some nerd jokes, answer for some experience, you know, control the soliloquies and direct the questions to the panelists. And, you know, that's grown into one of the largest in-person AI meetups that I can find anywhere. It's got, last time I checked, about 6,625 people, and the majority of them have shown up in person over the last three and a half years. There's been 23 events. 24th is during Boston AI Week. Speaker 2 (4:31) Yeah, that's the way I want to jump to because that's a great context because jump to now, how many people are you expecting to descend on Boston during Boston AI Week? That's a Speaker 1 (4:43) great question. I had invented it last year, you know, came up with the idea, the design, the site, and then socialized the vision, which I can share. And when we did the list counts last year of all the different people who had signed up, well, this is deduplicated. It was, you know. nearly 15,000. So, you know, I've never know, I didn't know if anybody would show up. And so, you know, people congratulate me and wonder how I did this and stuff. And I typically, you know, say, well, you know, if it was just me, I'd be alone in the seaport, which has certainly been many nights of my life. So it was really everyone else who Speaker 2 (5:20) does it. Speaker 1 (5:21) So thousands and thousands of people will show up. There's, um, Last time I counted, and this is probably two weeks ago, there were 516 organizations that were participating. Yeah, their last count I looked at was 157 different events. So it's a pretty substantial festival of AI, as I call it, Massachusetts Festival of AI. The largest of its kind, as far as I can Speaker 2 (5:45) tell. I can say, as an outsider, you're going to need a lot more pizza. So you're going to. Speaker 3 (5:54) And we're going to need we need to make sure we have enough beer because the Scots are coming back. Right. And if you're in Boston, you know what that joke's about. Speaker 2 (6:02) That's right. That's incredible. Yeah, I think that it's the fact that it's got taken on this international fame now. I'm excited for what's going to happen. I think. We're going to talk a little bit about your long range plan, if you're willing to share, because I think the most important thing I saw when I came to a Kendall Square event was there were 400 plus people in a room. And I thought, who are these people and what do they know? And what do I not know about AI? But this goes back to history when our country was founded. And, you know, here we are in this historical year where. So ideas are really our richest resource. And you sit at this incredible mecca of tech learning, and yet you're all such humanists. And if anybody's going to carve and forge the future and show the way, I think the most impressive thing I can say about what I see in Boston is there's just so much hope where everyone else is thinking it's a, you know, generative AI is a new great tool for social media. Can you... Can you talk a little bit about the vision for Boston AI Week and go a little deeper into why Boston, why now, and what you project for where this thing is going? That's a wide open question. Speaker 1 (7:11) Yeah, I can do that as briefly as possible. So Speaker 2 (7:16) the Boston Speaker 1 (7:17) generative AI meetup, it grew pretty large. And I was fortunate enough to exit my software company, Squark AI. to market holdings in 2024 and mid 2024. And I thought, well, what could I do to help out other people, founders, entrepreneurs, you know, investors, tech companies, you know, people in the community after that? And so I created something called the AI in Massachusetts Workforce Development and Career Fair. Speaker 3 (7:47) And Speaker 1 (7:47) I held at the Heinz Convention Center and like. late September, early October of 2024. And there were, you know, 800 people signed up. We had, you know, room 205, which is a decent sized room. And then, you know, something like 2200 people showed up and overwhelmed the capacity, even at the Heinz Convention Center for like a day event. There were, you know, Speaker 2 (8:12) lines that Speaker 1 (8:13) went for hours and down Boylston Street. So I had the nice fortune of meeting the very kind. boston fire marshal and uh some very nice we have the best Speaker 3 (8:25) fire fire fighters in the world yeah it Speaker 1 (8:28) was very nice but they were wondering like what is going on why are there you know lines and lines of people running down boylston street so i think they had to do some traffic mitigation and eventually we got everybody in but had to shut down the event according to state police by 5 30. they're asking like what is this and i was like well it's a career fair for ai and you know one of the things that ai gets a bad rap for um is you know it's a terminator of jobs right and i thought well if there's an executive who is you know trying to help people find jobs and companies promote their jobs that's a better uh story better for the brand of ai nationally so um that's one of the reasons i did it um there's also something to do you know i love doing things and bringing people together so uh Ultimately, I was thinking after that, like, well, what do I do next? And, you know, Boston has a startup week that a friend of mine, Stephanie, runs, and it's an amazing event for a decade. And years ago, there was a future M, future Massachusetts week long series of tech events. This had to be 2010 or something like that. But there was nothing else. And so I said, well, I'm going to create Boston AI week. around, you know, obviously artificial intelligence. And I set like four goals for it. Well, going back to the meetup, one of the goals I had set in 2023 was to help make Massachusetts the strongest AI economy in the United States. And I thought that would be a great, big, hairy, audacious goal. So with the BHAG, right? So with the Boston AI Week goals, the first was, you know, to really help to broaden the understanding and adoption of ai in massachusetts since your point it's a leading knowledge economy leading innovation economy and you know it influences the country um other states and thus the world so broadening the understanding adoption of an positive responsible ethical way super important to me uh and to do that i wanted to involve you know the full ecosystem so i don't really believe that you can build um an ecosystem if it's just software companies selling software to other software companies, right? So you're doing obviously the technology companies, but also, you know, the cultural institutions, the local, the state, the federal government, the landlords, the development, you know, the property developers, the small businesses, the retailers, music halls, you know, restaurants, the hotels, right? So everybody. So the idea of broadening the understanding and adoption. was the first goal. The second goal was to help create jobs and people find those jobs. And so by providing opportunities for companies to essentially schedule their events and promote their businesses, that leads to a lot of conversations about commerce, whether it's hiring or revenue or cost reduction, right? That's all good. So that helps to create jobs. Then obviously with the career fair, This will be the third year that I've done it. Last year, the second year was during Boston Eye Week. You know, that's the idea of finding jobs. So then the third Speaker 2 (11:42) goal Speaker 1 (11:42) was to connect the nodes. One of the things I realized, like meeting a lot of people working in the space, is that they didn't know each other. Right. Like similar to how Kara and I didn't know each other and working in the same space. Speaker 1 (11:54) And so, you know, the academics didn't know the investors that well, and the investors didn't know all the startups and the startups didn't know the enterprises, the public sector didn't know the private sector. And, you know, obviously some of the smaller businesses and, you know, analog, you know, historic businesses didn't know any of these folks or very few of them. So connecting the nodes here, super important. And then the fourth goal goes back to the initial goal I set back in May of 2023 was to create a stronger Massachusetts economy, you know, raise the water for all ships. And I think that's good. I've been living here forever. Don't plan to leave. And so, you know, it all just helps make this an even better place to live for everybody. So those are the four goals and essentially what I'm trying to accomplish with it. And then in terms of the larger vision, you know. Speaker 1 (12:44) it's easy to extend it. You know, there are other cities in the country and in the world that have pretty large festivals, whether they're related to arts and culture or