Tech Fair 2026: Using Tech To Rebuild Lives

Raising a Generation of Digital Learners explores what it means to parent and guide young people who are growing up surrounded by screens, digital platforms, and now AI tools, especially when many adults did not grow up with the same technology. The panel brings together perspectives from educational technology, media engagement, and lived parenting experience to examine the opportunities, risks, and day-to-day challenges shaped by digital childhood. In the age of fragmented attention, this discussion asks how adults can foster healthy relationships with technology without treating digital life as optional.

Prescribing Access to Digital Healthcare explores how technology is changing the way patients connect with care, from patient portals and health apps to virtual visits, remote monitoring, and wearable devices. The panel looks beyond the promise of digital healthcare to ask what actually works for patients, where people get stuck, and how access, trust, privacy, digital literacy, and workforce strain shape the real experience of care. It considers how digital health can expand access and improve outcomes while also creating new barriers if the tools are not designed, explained, and supported with patients in mind.

Cultivating Justice in Modern Food Systems explores how digital tools are reshaping the ways people access, understand, and participate in local food systems. We'll consider how organizations can use these tools to coordinate services, process information, and reach a wider audience, while also raising questions about what tradeoffs come with these new approaches. From community gardens to hydroponics, this panel looks at how technology can support greater agency and sustainability in the systems that shape our communities.

Decoding Pathways to Today’s Job Market explores how job seekers can navigate an increasingly competitive employment landscape shaped by emerging technologies, changing employer expectations, and unequal access to opportunity. As online applications become more crowded and automated, the panel will examine the particular challenges faced by nontraditional candidates. Bringing together perspectives from workforce development, inclusive hiring, reentry employment, and recruiting, this conversation will look at professionalism, networking, and the practical digital tools that can help job seekers overcome barriers to successful employment.

Making Music in the Age of the Algorithm explores how music production has evolved alongside new technology, from recording tools and digital platforms to streaming algorithms and AI systems. As these tools shape how music is created, distributed, discovered, and valued, artists face a familiar choice: resist the change or learn how to work with it. This panel considers technology as both a creative partner and a new set of obstacles, asking what it means to be an artist when the medium is constantly changing.