A big month for the roster: TIME's Top 100, the Slowdown Summit, and Lumination

A big stretch Silicon Valley Speakers with four things worth sharing.

Maya Ackerman was named to the 2026 "100 Women in AI"

Maya was just named to the 2026 100 Women in AI list, the annual recognition from Flybridge and XFactor Ventures of the women pushing the field forward across research, product, entrepreneurship, and investment. Only around 100 names make it each year, scored across six dimensions from accomplishments to influence, so it's a real signal.

If you've heard me talk about Maya, you know why it fits. She's the CEO of WaveAI and an AI professor at Santa Clara University, and she's also a trained opera singer. Most people building AI come straight from engineering, while Maya came at it from a creative perspective. She built one of the first generative AI music companies back in 2017, before "generative AI" was a phrase anyone used, and her tools have helped millions of people write songs.

She's published more than 50 academic papers, and her book, Creative Machines, is one of the clearest accounts of where AI and human creativity meet. She's spoken at the United Nations and at Oxford. For an audience working out what AI means for their own creative work, she's one of the sharpest voices I know.

Milly Tamati brought Generalist World to the Slowdown Summit

Milly built Generalist World, a 100,000-person community, from a Scottish island of 178 people. This spring, she was a featured speaker at the Slowdown Summit in Columbus, a one-day event built around a counterintuitive idea: that slowing down and designing for quieter and more reflective minds makes for better leadership than the usual burnout culture. It's a perfect fit for how Milly thinks about work, community, and the way careers actually get built.

I wrapped my talk at MPI WEC in San Antonio

Last week I spoke at the MPI World Education Congress in San Antonio, and it was a lot of fun. It was the last session of the last day, which usually means a thin room, but more than 70 people showed up, the busiest session in there that day.

It was also the first talk my parents had ever seen in person, which made it special. This was a step up from my usual content, with more practical examples packed into 40 minutes, including how to actually use Claude Cowork. I'll go deeper on all of it in the intermediate course on Claude for Events I'm teaching with Julius Solaris soon.

One lesson came the hard way: I built the presentation in Claude Design and found out live how experimental tools can backfire at the worst possible moment. More on that another time.

Till next time,
Noah

Do More With Less Using AI

PS: Milly's speaker reel lands in an upcoming edition, which I am very excited to share.