yconic AI Summit (First Day)

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In today’s enterprise AI race, falling behind is poor practice, but, not progressing at all is malpractice. Most AI conferences are all talk. This one runs on demonstrations from real enterprises and sandbox workshops where you build with the systems yourself, not slides about them. Bring a problem that costs you money. Leave with something running.

How To Find What To Solve

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Information is broken, ongoing and deepening. We have tools, some well known and some emerging. We'll run through a model of bulwarks that happen along with information literacy. Then we'll walk through an overview for a model for one of the hardest things to wrap our heads around: expanding context.

Closing the Founder Success Gap: 5 Habits That Separate Founders Who Can Excel Quickly

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Most founders aren't struggling because they lack talent — they're struggling because no one taught them ways to handle the weight of constant high-stakes decisions. This session walks through five habits that separate founders who scale quickly from those who may stall or burn out, drawn from real coaching work with founders in make-or-break moments. Practical, story-driven, and built for founders who want to move faster with less stress, not more work.

How to Successfully Find a Co-Founder

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Starting a business requires far more than one person’s expertise. Successful founders recognize that turning an idea into a thriving enterprise often depends on partnering with someone whose strengths complement their own. The right co-founder can bring sharper strategy, stronger execution, and greater focus to the business journey. In this interactive workshop, two entrepreneurs will share why they made the strategic decision to bring on co-founders and how those partnerships contributed to their success. Participants will learn the criteria they used to select the right partner, the expectations they established from Day One, and the practical steps they took to build cohesive, productive, and high-performing working relationships.

Immigration Options for Startups

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This session provides a practical map of U.S. immigration pathways available to startups in 2026. The landscape has shifted materially in the past year, especially for H-1B, and startups need to choose a pathway based on their profile, the company's stage, and current policy conditions. The goal is not to make anyone an immigration expert in an hour, but to help startup founders (1) Understand different visa categories (2) identify which immigration pathways are realistic for their situation, (3) know what to prepare before starting an immigration case.

Building an AI-Forward Sales Process (That Actually Works)

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AI is rebuilding how the best teams sell — but bolted onto a messy process, it just automates the chaos. This session covers what an AI-forward sales process actually looks like: where AI genuinely improves the sales motion, what has to be in place first, and the order of operations for building a sales system that scales. Led by Jeffrey D'Entremont, founder of Peak Partners (HubSpot Platinum Solutions Partner, 100+ CRM implementations). Built for founders and small revenue teams.

AI Is Coming for Your Moat: What Investors and Founders Need to Know About Defensible Enterprise Value

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AI is making it easier to build, copy, search, test, and challenge. For startups and investors, that changes the meaning of defensibility. This session will explore how companies can build durable enterprise value through technology ownership, software and data rights, trade secrets, patents, trademarks, contracts, commercialization strategy, and exit readiness.

Should I Apply for a Patent? Maybe Not.

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Working with inventors over the last 16 years, we have learned that there are times we must advise an entrepreneur not to pursue patent protection. This can be due to many factors: like when a search reveals contradicting prior art; when the invention, while innovative, will not pass the examination process without undue expense and resulting in a weak patent; or when a method patent is inappropriate. We will discuss these pitfalls and give real stories of successes and failures, focusing on the Rhode Island startups we have worked with. We will outline the three tests that the US Patent Office applies to an invention, how to overcome those tests, and other avenues for intellectual-property protection, including trade secrets, trademarks, "use in commerce," and copyright. Scott Keeley is a registered patent agent who has been working with Rhode Island inventors since 2009.

Yconic Hackathon

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Embracing the Pirate Side - How to Discover Your Authentic Brand

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This is not your typical “Five Steps to a Better Brand” presentation. This is the story of how, seven years ago, I embraced my pirate side and discovered an authentic brand for my business. It’s well known that pirates are true entrepreneurs (usually starting from nothing) and excel at branding. So let’s spend some time together, and I’ll share how I guide clients on a journey to discover their own authentic brand treasure.

yconic AI Summit (Second day)

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In today’s enterprise AI race, falling behind is poor practice, but, not progressing at all is malpractice. Most AI conferences are all talk. This one runs on demonstrations from real enterprises and sandbox workshops where you build with the systems yourself, not slides about them. Bring a problem that costs you money. Leave with something running.

AI Powered Marketing for Startups

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Whether you're launching a startup or growing a small business, AI can become a valuable marketing partner. This one-hour, hands-on workshop teaches entrepreneurs how to leverage generative AI tools for market research, customer insights, competitive analysis, market sizing, persona creation, and content development. Designed for beginners, the session focuses on practical applications that support smarter marketing decisions and faster execution.

How to Mindfully Work With a Consultant

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Mindfully Hiring a Consultant is a 90-minute, single-session workshop for founders and organizational leaders who are bringing in outside expertise for the first time, or trying to make those relationships work better than they have in the past. Consultants can be a powerful investment, but most engagements go sideways, not because of the consultant but because the organization wasn't clear on what it actually needed before signing anything. This workshop walks participants through how to identify real needs versus perceived ones, write a statement of work that protects both parties, set expectations from day one, and ensure the deliverables are actually used once the engagement ends.

Marketing Clarity for Founders: What to Do, Track, and Ignore

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Marketing shouldn’t feel like guesswork, but for most founders, it does. I've designed a practical session to help early-stage founders understand what marketing is actually responsible for, which metrics matter most early on, and how to build a simple operating model they can implement immediately. Here's what I cover: - Why marketing feels confusing - What marketing is responsible for - Key metrics that matter early - How GTM has changed - A simple marketing operating model founders can steal Who this is for: Startup founders, CEOs, early-stage operators, and anyone responsible for growth who wants clarity and traction without the fluff!

Nucleate's Activator: Inside the Accelerator Program

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This will be a panel discussion featuring a moderator from Nucleate leadership, 2-3 panelists from the Rhode Island teams that participated in Boston's Activator program this past 2025-2026 year, as well as a student volunteer from Nucleate RI's leadership who helped to organize the Activator program that year. The discussion will first introduce the goals, scope and success of Nucleate as a student-run, nationwide nonprofit, led by the Nucleate leadership present. Then, the panelists will be invited to share their businesses and how they benefitted from participating in the Activator, highlighting skills, experiences, and networks that they wouldn't have been able to gain without participation. The event will end with a Q&A and information about how future teams can apply to participate.

Brand Visibility: building a dynamic content calendar that helps you stand out in AI-driven search and discovery

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Your next customers, partners, investors, or hires are using LLMs to discover and select the businesses they support. Join Matter Communications to explore practical ways to build a sustainable visibility strategy that helps your company get found by the right audiences at the right time.

From Idea to App: AI-Assisted Development for Non-Technical Entrepreneurs

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Turn your app idea into a working prototype, no coding background required. In this 90-minute hands-on workshop, non-technical founders will discover how AI-assisted development (often called "vibe coding") is reshaping what's possible for solo entrepreneurs and small teams. You'll learn what vibe coding is and where it shines (MVPs, prototypes, internal tools, and the emerging "software for one" concept), how to choose between leading platforms like Lovable for web apps and FlutterFlow for mobile, and how Supabase can power your backend with databases, authentication, and file storage. The centerpiece is a live build demo where we take a simple app idea from prompt to deployed URL in real time, covering effective prompt-writing, the iterative refine-and-rebuild process, and basic troubleshooting when things go sideways. You'll leave with a confidence to start prototyping your own ideas the moment you walk out the door.

Attract Your Ideal Clients (How to build a clear brand that sets you apart)

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Many small and mid-sized business owners are doing many marketing tasks, posting, promoting, networking, but still not attracting consistent clients. The problem is NOT effort. It’s that their brand and messaging aren’t clear enough for people to know, like, trust, and choose them. If this is you, you’re not alone. For many business owners, there is a common misconception that a brand is just logos and visuals. In reality, clarity in your purpose, audience, and messaging is what drives ideal clients through your door and directly impacts your bottom line. When those pieces are unclear, marketing feels inconsistent, and leads feel hit-or-miss. In this talk, you’ll walk through what makes a brand easy to understand and trust, and how small shifts in clarity can make a big difference in the way your message is received. As the founder of Dream in Color Marketing and a marketing professor, Kristyn brings real-world experience to help businesses with clear and practical marketing steps.

URI Innovations Showcase

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This event will bring together academia with investors and industry partners to showcase startups, founders, researchers and professors at URI who have developed innovative and inspiring work. This will be a great opportunity to connect with the entrepreneurial ecosystem and provide you with a glimpse of current startups developing innovative products, as well as emerging projects that are in their early stages. Our goal is to bring the ecosystem together, light a spark and see what we can inspire when you put entrepreneurial talent and great partners in the room together.

Yconic Hackathon

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