Their NO. Your YES.: Meridian on the ACCT Leadership Congress Mainstage
At the ACCT Leadership Congress 2026 in Chicago, N2N Services Founder & CEO Kiran Kodithala made the sponsor-remarks case to the nation's community-college trustees and presidents: the era of waiting on a vendor's "no" is over. With Meridian, a college describes the change it needs in plain English, reviews what the AI proposes, and approves it — in an afternoon, not eighteen months. Full keynote embedded.
Sponsor remarks on the mainstage of the ACCT Leadership Congress 2026, October 22, Chicago.
By N2N Services · October 22, 2026
At the ACCT Leadership Congress 2026 in Chicago — the Association of Community College Trustees' annual gathering of the governing boards, presidents, and chancellors who steer the nation's community colleges — N2N Services Founder & CEO Kiran Kodithala took the mainstage for the opening session's sponsor remarks with a single, deliberately pointed argument: the dozens of systems that run your campus change only when a vendor decides they should — and that is no longer necessary.
The talk had a title that doubled as a thesis: "Their NO. Your YES." The premise is squarely a governance premise, aimed at the people in the room who set the mission, approve the budget, and answer to their community. Trustees are not responsible for a vendor meeting its roadmap. They are responsible for their institution's own destiny — and for the first time, the technology finally lets them act like it.
Watch the full remarks
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The one request that never ships
Kiran opened the argument with a story every board member in the room recognized. A college installs twelve new EV charging spaces. The facilities director emails the parking-system vendor with one small ask: add a permit type for them. That's the whole request — one field.
The answer comes back: it's on the roadmap. A year later, still planned. Eighteen months later, still planned. Meanwhile the spaces sit there, students park in them anyway, campus police write tickets the system can't classify, and a whole cohort comes and goes — while one request sits in a queue.
It isn't really about parking. It's the state of enterprise software as it stands. The parking system, the ID-card system, the cafeteria system — most were built decades ago, and they still change only to serve the vendor's roadmap, not your campus. The word that comes back is always some version of the same one: No. Not supported. Not on the roadmap. Maybe next year.
Which raises the question Kiran put directly to the trustees: your college — their permission?
The answer: build by conversation
That is why N2N built Meridian — an agent-native platform that lets your own people build and change your college's software by conversation, in plain English. The facilities director describes the change — "add an EV charging permit." Meridian proposes the change to the data model. Your team reviews it. Your institution approves it. Done in an afternoon, not eighteen months.
- Describe it. Your staff state the need in plain English — no ticket, no vendor queue, no roadmap. The request is the prompt.
- Review it. The AI does the building and proposes the change — a new field, a new object, a new workflow, a new app — as a plan card your team reviews before anything is written.
- Own it. Your institution approves it. Nothing changes without that approval. AI does the building; your people keep the authority. That is what sovereignty means for a college: your data, your rules, your platform — and no vendor standing between your people and the change they need.
See what YES can do
The changes you've been waiting on stop being someone else's roadmap item. A new state reporting requirement? Your policy changes — your system can, too, by editing the data model with AI. An accessibility tool your faculty have asked for? Describe the need, review the proposal, approve the app. A more personal path for different learners? Build the platform that adapts to them. Your students can't wait for your vendor — with Meridian, they don't have to.
Every one of these runs through the same governed platform N2N already ships for California's community colleges. The surfaces below are real Meridian screens, driven live against a California Community Colleges "Course Catalog & Schedule" tenant on dev.lightleap.ai/meridian — not mockups.
Full control. Less cost.
And the part for the CFO: full control at less than 40% of what a college pays its current vendor in subscription today. More control, less cost — not a trade-off, but the point. (Illustrative comparison; actual pricing varies by institution, scope, and contract term.)
This isn't a research demo. N2N has supported higher education for 15 years. The same platform shown on stage is the one behind the products N2N already runs with the sector: fraud detection stopping financial-aid fraud at over 200 community colleges; a Credit for Prior Learning platform built with the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office; and course-registration work with the California Virtual Campus. The platform is the through-line.
Scenes from the room
Why this room, and why now
ACCT is where community-college governance gathers — the trustees and board members who answer to their communities for how an institution spends its money and serves its students. That is exactly the right room for this argument, because the shift Meridian represents is not primarily a technology shift. It's a shift in who decides. When AI can build working, governed software from a sentence, the choice of what to build moves back to the campus, the classroom, and the student-services office where it belongs — and away from a vendor's roadmap.
N2N Services is grateful to ACCT and to every trustee and president who stopped by after the session to name the request that's been "on the roadmap" at their college. Your next vendor renewal is a choice. Say YES to your platform — on your terms.
Also see
- How to Build Your First AI Product — the September keynote and live workshop at the California Community Colleges' Futures Summit, where the same platform was built on stage.
- The Birth of Meridian — the founder's-note companion on the ten weeks that produced the platform.
- Meridian — the platform — the full product page, including the walkthrough from prompt to running tenant.
- Try Meridian (Early Access) — build your first AI product now. No sign-in needed; you get a governed tenant on its own database in about 30 seconds.
Fifteen years of building. The leap is now.
Talk to N2N about partnerships, press, or careers — or visit LightLeapAI to see what we built.