September 2026 Chapter Meeting
Artificial Intelligence Under the Hood
Our next Chapter Meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 23 from 5:30–7:00 PM. Please RSVP if you plan on attending! RSVP’s are greatly appreciated so we can ensure an accurate headcount for planning purposes.
Schedule: Presentations begin promptly at 5:30 PM; light dinner and refreshments served before the meeting.
Date
Wednesday, September 23 from 5:30–7:00 PM
Location Information
Northpointe Bank
5303 28th St Ct SE,
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
Artificial Intelligence Under the Hood
Artificial intelligence is often described in language that makes it sound like magic, models that understand, reason, and learn. Strip away the vocabulary however, and a neural network is nothing more than mathematics: multiply, add, compare, adjust, rinse & repeat.
This presentation peers under the AI hood. Using a problem small enough to hold in your head, we’ll train a simple neural network in a live demo. We start with a network that knows nothing and guesses randomly, then watch it learn. You will see how error is measured, how that error is pushed back through the network, and how heaps of tiny adjustments turn particles into patterns.
No calculus prerequisite, no framework foreknowledge, no black boxes. Just the machinery laid bare, doing something you can follow and verify with your own eyes. Come join us to comprehend the AI fundamentals of loss functions, gradient descent, and backpropagation.
Speaker Bio
Paul Speulstra, with 3 decades of enterprise IT experience, is an accomplished cybersecurity specialist, software developer, manager, and speaker. From the early days of the very first boot sector, file, and macro viruses to today’s threats combating APTs, BECs, AI phishing, and ransomware attacks, Paul has an extensive and diversified background in the security sphere. Prior front-line experience as a cybersecurity specialist and incident responder inside a Fortune 500 global cybersecurity operations center, Paul has firsthand knowledge in the research, prevention, detection, and remediation of cyber threats and malware. Paul, currently working for Bayside Solutions, Inc., a cybersecurity VAR based in Saint Petersburg Florida, is the inventor and programmer of Cyrebrium™, the cyber brain that powers BSI’s suspicious email analysis and inspection service known as Orqet™ (formerly PhishQueue™).
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Special note: Please: Text Patti if you are running late @ (616) 340-6119.
The building access has good strong security protocols and all access between lobby and conference room is escorted. Therefore, please be prompt at or before 5:30pm in the lobby. Someone will be waiting in the lobby for everyone to arrive.