Keynote: Human First, AI Second

Event Overview

The fear was AI would offload thinking. The opposite is true: when human creativity comes first and AI second, classrooms can spark projects students would never have started on their own. The key to success is sequencing. AI in the classroom will determine whether the next generation arrives with judgment, curiosity, and the durable skills the AI era actually rewards.

Join Cornell faculty Lutz Finger and Maureen Heymans, VP of Engineering for Learning at Google, for a conversation on what it takes to evolve the classroom rather than automate it. Maureen is one of the leads of Google's learning efforts across Search, YouTube, Gemini, NotebookLM, and Classroom, building products that aim to give every student a personalized tutor and every teacher a real assistant. They will cover the durable skills the AI era rewards, why current assessment systems block progress, how project-based learning scales when sequencing is right, and where bias still gets in the way.

This live session is designed for senior leaders who want a grounded view of where learning is heading, not hype. Come with your questions; the conversation is open, interactive, and not to be missed.

What You'll Learn

What Google is building across Search, YouTube, Gemini, NotebookLM, and Classroom to support both students and teachers
Why sequencing AI after human creativity produces stronger thinkers, not weaker ones
How current assessment systems block the durable skills the AI era actually rewards
What project-based learning looks like when teachers have real AI tools to scale it
How bias will need to be controlled.

Speakers

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Lutz Finger

Visiting Senior Lecturer

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Visiting Senior Lecturer, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Lutz Finger is a Silicon Valley technologist and Cornell faculty member with 20+ years of experience building AI-driven products and platforms at Google, LinkedIn, and Snap. He is a serial entrepreneur (R2Decide, acquired in 2025; Fisheye Analytics, acquired in 2013) and currently leads AI strategy at XGEN AI, developing next-generation generative retail solutions.

Finger teaches several courses on AI and product development. His eCornell certificate program provides an end-to-end guide to using AI to create measurable business value, and has helped executives worldwide move from AI ideas to real implementations:

Finger is also a frequent Forbes contributor on AI and the future of commerce. He is a Venture Partner at Cherry Ventures, serves on multiple advisory boards, and has advised and invested in data-centric companies across the United States and Europe. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and an M.S. in Quantum Physics from TU Berlin.

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Maureen Heymans

VP of Engineering, Learning

Google

Maureen Heymans is VP of Engineering for Learning at Google, where she leads efforts to transform learning and education experiences across Google products including Search, YouTube, Classroom, Gemini, and NotebookLM. Her team’s mission is to provide a personalized tutor for every student and an assistant for every teacher, with the goal of helping anyone learn anything.

Maureen joined Google in 2003 and spent 19 years in the Search org, working on ranking, cross-language search, social search, personal search, and Google Now. She later led the Google App and Discover Engineering Team before joining the Learning and Sustainability org three years ago.

Originally from Belgium, Maureen earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, after completing an engineering degree with a specialization in applied mathematics (and a minor in computer science) at Université Catholique de Louvain, where her thesis applied graph theory to the web graph.

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