Register here: 2026 Southern Colorado Regional Cybersecurity & AI Conference
2026 Southern Colorado Regional Cybersecurity & AI Conference
Day 1 Agenda, October 8, 2026
8:00 AM - 8:30 AM Attendee Sign-in
Day 1: Thursday, October 8, 2026
Room: OSC South Ballroom
8:30 AM - 11:00 AM Workshop 1: Mastering NotebookLM
Denise K. Henry, MAEd Instructional Designer Colorado St
Room: Tundra
Workshop Summary: This is a hands-on 2.5-hour workshop is designed to take participants from beginners to confident users of Google’s NotebookLM. Unlike standard AI chatbots, NotebookLM acts as a personalized, AI-powered research assistant grounded entirely in the user's own trusted documents. This session guides attendees through initial setup, document ingestion, advanced synthesis techniques, and utilizing multimedia outputs to accelerate learning and workflow productivity. No prior AI experience is required. Just bring your laptop, your Google account login, and your curiosity. You’ll leave with practical skills you can start using right away.
8:30 AM - 11:00 AM Workshop 2: Interactive Cybersecurity Preparedness: FEMA Cybersecurity Game
Mark D. Gonzales, IT Director Pueblo City County Library District
Room: Great Plains
Workshop Summary: In this engaging and interactive session, participants will enhance their cybersecurity preparedness by playing the FEMA Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise Game. Designed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this game presents a series of realistic cyber incident scenarios that challenge teams to think critically, make rapid decisions, and navigate the complexities of cyber crisis response. Participants will take on key organizational roles such as IT, legal, communications, and executive leadership, and collaborate to respond to evolving threats like phishing attacks, ransomware, data breaches, and system outages. No prior AI experience is required. Just bring your curiosity and leave with skills you can use immediately.
8:30 AM - 11:00 AM Workshop 3: AI Prompting
Adam Pocius Executive Director IT, CSU Pueblo / Director
Room: Aspen
Workshop Summary: Join Adam Pocius, Executive Director of IT at CSU Pueblo and Director of IT Support & Services for the CSU System, for an engaging, hands-on workshop designed to help attendees get the most out of today's AI tools. Whether you're new to AI or have only experimented with tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or Claude, this session will teach you how to move beyond basic questions and create effective prompts that generate more useful, accurate, and actionable results. Participants will learn practical prompting strategies, common pitfalls to avoid, and real-world use cases for education, business, research, productivity, and everyday work. By the end of the workshop, you'll have the confidence and skills to use AI more effectively in both your professional and personal life. No prior AI experience is required. Just bring your laptop, curiosity, and a willingness to learn.
8:30 AM - 11:00 AM Workshop 4: Locally Hosted Agentic AI Incident Response and Disaster Recovery
Speaker: Justin Pack PCC Cybersecurity Faculty
Room: Wolfden
Workshop Summary: This session explores how locally hosted agentic AI can support cyber incident response and disaster recovery when cloud services and internet connectivity are unavailable. Participants will learn about current AI technologies, agentic AI frameworks, local deployment considerations, and take part in a hands-on cyber investigation exercise comparing AI-assisted and traditional log analysis techniques. No prior experience is required. Just bring your laptop, curiosity, and a willingness to learn.
Speaker: TBD
Room: OSC South Ballroom
Workshop Summary:
11:45 AM - 1:00 PM Lunch: CSU Pueblo Pack Cafeteria
Building: Occhiato Student Center
Lunch provided by OPTIV American Cybersecurity Advisory and Solutions
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM Workshop 5: NotebookLM
Denise K. Henry, MAEd Instructional Designer Colorado St
Room: Tundra
Workshop Summary: This is a hands-on 2.5-hour workshop is designed to take participants from beginners to confident users of Google’s NotebookLM. Unlike standard AI chatbots, NotebookLM acts as a personalized, AI-powered research assistant grounded entirely in the user's own trusted documents. This session guides attendees through initial setup, document ingestion, advanced synthesis techniques, and utilizing multimedia outputs to accelerate learning and workflow productivity. No prior AI experience is required. Just bring your laptop, your Google account login, and your curiosity. You’ll leave with practical skills you can start using right away.
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM Workshop 6: Interactive Cybersecurity Preparedness: FEMA Cybersecurity Game
Mark D. Gonzales, IT Director Pueblo City County Library District
Room: Great Plains
Workshop Summary: In this engaging and interactive session, participants will enhance their cybersecurity preparedness by playing the FEMA Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise Game. Designed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this game presents a series of realistic cyber incident scenarios that challenge teams to think critically, make rapid decisions, and navigate the complexities of cyber crisis response. Participants will take on key organizational roles such as IT, legal, communications, and executive leadership, and collaborate to respond to evolving threats like phishing attacks, ransomware, data breaches, and system outages. No prior AI experience is required. Just bring your laptop, curiosity and leave with skills you can use immediately.
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM Workshop 7: AI Prompting
Adam Pocius Executive Director IT, CSU Pueblo / Director
Room: Aspen
Workshop Summary: Join Adam Pocius, Executive Director of IT at CSU Pueblo and Director of IT Support & Services for the CSU System, for an engaging, hands-on workshop designed to help attendees get the most out of today's AI tools. Whether you're new to AI or have only experimented with tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or Claude, this session will teach you how to move beyond basic questions and create effective prompts that generate more useful, accurate, and actionable results. Participants will learn practical prompting strategies, common pitfalls to avoid, and real-world use cases for education, business, research, productivity, and everyday work. By the end of the workshop, you'll have the confidence and skills to use AI more effectively in both your professional and personal life. No prior AI experience is required. Just bring your laptop, curiosity, and a willingness to learn.
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM Workshop 8: Locally Hosted Agentic AI Incident Response and Disaster Recovery
Justin Pack PCC Cybersecurity Faculty - CIS
Room: Wolfden
Workshop Summary: This session explores how locally hosted agentic AI can support cyber incident response and disaster recovery when cloud services and internet connectivity are unavailable. Participants will learn about current AI technologies, agentic AI frameworks, local deployment considerations, and take part in a hands-on cyber investigation exercise comparing AI-assisted and traditional log analysis techniques. No prior experience is required. Just bring your laptop, curiosity, and a willingness to learn.
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM Cybersecurity Roundtable: Meet the Experts
Mark Gonzales InfoSec Manager, CSU System CYBR Team
Room: OSC South Ballroom
Workshop Summary: This session brings together IT and cybersecurity professionals for an open, peer-to-peer exchange on the toughest challenges facing our organizations today. From AI-driven threats to evolving compliance demands, attendees will have the opportunity to share insights, ask questions, and explore practical solutions with subject matter experts and presenters. Whether you're looking to strengthen your incident response, refine access controls, or understand emerging risks, this is your chance to pick the brains of experienced professionals and build meaningful connections across institutions.
Day 2 Agenda, October 9, 2026
Conference Sign-in 8:00 to 8:15 AM
Room: OSC Ballroom
8:15 AM - 8:25 AM Conference Welcome Introduction
Mark D. Gonzales, Information Security Manager for CSU
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
8:25 AM - 8:40 AM SPONSOR SPOLIGHT: Welcome from the Hasan School of Business
HSB Yaneth Correa Martinez, Associate Dean Hasan School
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Sponsor: Coffee, Tea, Water
Session Summary: TBD
8:40 AM - 9:30 AM Keynote Speakers: Adam Pocius & Ryan Higley
Adam Pocius & Ryan Higley
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Session Summary: TBD
9:30 AM - 10:20 AM FBI Cyber Threats and Trends
Special Agent Eric Littlepage
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Session Summary: Join representatives from the FBI for an overview of the latest cyber threats and trends impacting organizations across the United States. This session will discuss the current threat landscape, including ransomware, business email compromise, cybercrime, nation-state activity, and emerging attack techniques targeting both public and private sector organizations. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how threat actors operate, what the FBI is seeing across the country, and practical steps organizations can take to strengthen their cybersecurity posture and reduce risk.
10:30 AM - 11:20 AM Be a Control(s) Freak: Leveraging the CIS Controls.”
Heather Doxon, Center for Internet Security
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Session Summary: How to implement and track our globally recognized set of prioritized cybersecurity best practices to help defend against the most prevalent cyber threats. Our Controls provide specific, actionable safeguards broken into Implementation Groups (IGs) to help organizations build a defense-in-depth strategy and streamline compliance efforts, with a focus on fundamental security hygiene first, making them a prescriptive and simplified starting point for improving cybersecurity posture.
Speaker: TBD
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Workshop Summary:
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch: CSU Pueblo Pack Cafeteria
Building: Occhiato Student Center
Lunch provided by OPTIV American Cybersecurity Advisory and Solutions
1:30 PM - 2:00 AM SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT: Compliance Frameworks: Why They Matter
Marcy R. Freeburg Owner/Founder J & M Solutions LLC
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Sponsor - Morning Danishes and Afternoon Cookies
Session Summary: Room: OSC Ballroom Sponsor - Morning Danishes and Afternoon Cookies Summary: Compliance frameworks provide organizations with a structured approach to managing cybersecurity risk, protecting sensitive information, and strengthening operational resilience. More than just a regulatory requirement, compliance helps organizations establish clear security practices, build trust with customers and stakeholders, reduce the likelihood of cyber incidents, and demonstrate due diligence in an increasingly complex threat landscape. This session will explore how compliance frameworks can serve as practical roadmaps for improving security, supporting business continuity, and aligning cybersecurity efforts with organizational goals. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of why compliance matters and how it can help organizations create a stronger, more resilient security posture.
2:00 PM - 2:50 PM Cryptography
Zach Collier
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Session Summary: TBD
3:00 PM - 3:50 PM AI Chatbots & Agents in 2026
Justin Pack
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Session Summary: Building the Future: AI Chatbots & Agents in 2026 explores how artificial intelligence is evolving from simple chatbots that answer questions to intelligent agents that can take action, automate workflows, and support business operations. Participants will gain practical insights into AI adoption trends, security and governance considerations, cloud versus local deployment options, and the technologies driving modern AI solutions. The session also highlights real-world use cases, emerging risks, and open-source tools that organizations can use to begin their AI journey. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of how to responsibly implement and leverage AI in 2026 and beyond.
3:50 PM PM - 4:30 PM Open Forum: Bringing It All Together
Mark D. Gonzales, Information Security Manager for CSU
Room: OSC South Ballroom Room: (Limit 125)
Session Summary: This closing session brings together the key lessons from today’s conference and provides space for open discussion. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions, share insights, and connect ideas to their own work. By the end of this forum, we aim to leave everyone with a stronger sense of community, practical takeaways to support daily work, and a renewed commitment to advancing cybersecurity awareness and resilience across our campus and beyond.