Join us for an engaging evening with leading voices in AI-driven innovation as they share insights on the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. This panel discussion will explore real-world applications, emerging trends and the future of GenAI across sectors.

Meet Our Panelists

AJ Richichi, CEO and Founder of Sprockets

AJ Richichi is a two-time founder and award-winning entrepreneur. His most recent company, Sprockets, used artificial intelligence to connect millions of hourly workers with some of the world’s most recognizable brands before being acquired in August. He is also an Amazon best-selling author with Forbes. AJ resides in Charleston with his high school sweetheart and their two children, but is spending more time in Cambridge finishing his undergraduate degree at Harvard after all these years.

Drayton Wade, Head of Operations at ReflectionAI

Drayton Wade is a multi-time entrepreneur currently serving as head of operations in charge of all non-engineering functions for ReflectionAI, an $8B AI startup building openweight, American-made, large-language models. Drayton joined Reflection (backed by Nvidia, Lightspeed, Sequoia and others) as the first non-engineer, responsible for establishing and scaling core operations, finance, sales and marketing functions. Since joining, Reflection has grown from a small research team to a well-established frontier lab and raised over $2B to further its mission of bringing top-performing open-weight models to business, the U.S. government and Sovereign AI projects with allied nations. Prior to Reflection, Drayton served in various roles at startups from seed stage through IPO, including stints as COO of Kognitos (AI startup) and as senior director at UiPath. Outside of work, Drayton is actively involved with Clemson University (his undergraduate alma mater) and serves on the Clemson Alumni Association Board of Directors. In 2023 Clemson awarded Drayton the Roaring 10 award, given to the top 10 young alumni. Drayton is a frequent speaker on AI topics at universities and gave the keynote speech at the 2024 Charleston State of the Tech Dinner. Drayton earned his B.A. from Clemson, his MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics and his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He and his wife Jessica (a Charleston-area OBGYN), live in Charleston.

Matt Rosa, CEO and Co-Founder at Alita

Matt Rosa is a health care technology leader pioneering the use of empathetic AI to transform post-acute care. As co-founder and CEO of Alita, he builds intelligent automation that handles the busy work in admissions, intake and hiring, so care teams can focus on people, not paperwork. Rosa has helped multiple health care startups reach unicorn status, combining deep operational insight with hands-on work alongside AI engineers to turn real-world challenges into scalable innovation. With a decade of experience collaborating with owners, operators and frontline staff, he’s seen firsthand how technology can either burden or empower care teams. Today, Rosa leads Alita’s mission to make AI a true partner in care - one that scales empathy, accelerates outcomes and helps providers grow without burnout.