There’s a particular flavor of anxiety that’s causing us all to believe that if we’re not using AI all day every day we’re falling hopeless behind. If you’re overwhelmed, resistant, skeptical, or just genuinely uninterested in the AI hype cycle right now, I want to say something that you might not be hearing very often: That’s okay. You’re going to be fine. And here’s why I think that.
One of the things I’m most proud of during my career is creating and running UW-Madison’s Computer Sciences Capstone course (CS 620). Every semester, hundreds of computer science Seniors work in teams of four to six on real software projects for real organizations, using agile development practices. And every semester, I need great partner organizations to make it happen. Last year, we had 27 amazing partners and we’re looking to grow quite a bit to accommodate 40% more students for the 2026-2027 school year.
I just returned from the Global Agility + Innovation Summit, a one-day leadership conference in DC hosted by Sanjiv Augustine and his team at LitheSpeed. It was a day packed with sharp thinking, genuine conversation, and the kind of energy that only happens when a room full of practitioners who actually care about the work they’re doing get together. Here are some conference highlights.