WEBVTT

NOTE
English captions for the CCC Futures Summit 2026 keynote — 7:38 talk.
Generated with faster-whisper (small.en, word-level timestamps) against the
final concatenated landscape video and hand-corrected for brand names,
technical terms, and numerals. Cues split at sentence boundaries with a
soft cap of ~7s / ~14 words for readability. Any remaining transcription
drift is superficial and will be amended in a follow-up when the author
reviews the final captions.

1
00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:09.620
Hello, everyone. My name is Kiran Kodithala, founder and CEO of N2N

2
00:00:09.620 --> 00:00:16.750
Services. I think this is my third Futures Summit presentation, and it still feels

3
00:00:16.750 --> 00:00:21.410
like yesterday — in 2023, that was our inaugural Futures Summit.

4
00:00:22.370 --> 00:00:25.090
A lot has changed in the last three years, hasn't it?

5
00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.440
Well, a lot has changed in the last six months.

6
00:00:29.860 --> 00:00:34.530
However, higher education is still somewhat dated.

7
00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:40.030
Let me ask you this question. Do you know when your ID card system

8
00:00:40.030 --> 00:00:46.660
was originally launched? How about your student payment system?

9
00:00:49.540 --> 00:00:52.000
What about a library management system?

10
00:00:55.520 --> 00:00:58.760
Some of you think that it's probably 2000s. You're wrong.

11
00:00:59.160 --> 00:01:03.400
Some of you guys think it's probably 1990s. You're wrong.

12
00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:15.780
In fact, most of these systems were originally launched in the 1980s.

13
00:01:16.310 --> 00:01:20.050
The original systems were green-screen terminals that were created.

14
00:01:21.210 --> 00:01:27.770
And unfortunately, the truth is, they're still mostly lipstick on the systems that were

15
00:01:27.770 --> 00:01:32.700
originally created. But the truth of the matter is, that was the right answer

16
00:01:34.220 --> 00:01:38.580
then, 40 years ago. And that was probably a right answer 20 years ago.

17
00:01:39.020 --> 00:01:43.520
Probably a right answer even five years ago, or even two years ago.

18
00:01:44.240 --> 00:01:49.800
But with the age of AI, when we can build software development with the

19
00:01:49.800 --> 00:01:52.280
speed of light, that's no longer the right answer.

20
00:01:53.170 --> 00:01:57.110
We can now build applications at the speed of light.

21
00:01:58.230 --> 00:02:01.930
Before I answer this, let me explain to you our own key strategy at

22
00:02:01.930 --> 00:02:10.460
N2N. Over the last seven months, six engineers at N2N — out of 60 employees —

23
00:02:10.460 --> 00:02:14.340
have created over five million lines of code.

24
00:02:15.290 --> 00:02:19.030
And this is not five million lines of code that was AI slop.

25
00:02:19.270 --> 00:02:23.630
This is shippable code that's actually used by some of our customers.

26
00:02:25.430 --> 00:02:31.360
These five million lines of code, for comparison purposes, was 100 times more than

27
00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:34.360
what we created in 25 years with our own developers.

28
00:02:35.900 --> 00:02:39.620
And why is that important? The reason why it is important is because AI

29
00:02:39.620 --> 00:02:43.760
is able to create better software and more software, quickly.

30
00:02:44.880 --> 00:02:48.940
But how is it even possible that we're creating five million lines of code

31
00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:56.290
of shippable software? We're doing it because we created software that creates software.

32
00:02:57.010 --> 00:03:01.330
We created a platform that makes it easy — with the power of AI —

33
00:03:01.330 --> 00:03:04.290
to create software. And why is that important?

34
00:03:04.630 --> 00:03:07.850
The reason why it's important is you're not just building the student information

35
00:03:07.850 --> 00:03:14.430
system or parking system or financial aid system, because it requires student security, compliance

36
00:03:14.430 --> 00:03:18.530
controls, software controls, and accessibility controls.

37
00:03:18.970 --> 00:03:20.830
You want it to be secure.

38
00:03:21.410 --> 00:03:27.870
That's why we created Meridian. Meridian is a platform that makes it easy for

39
00:03:27.870 --> 00:03:29.410
customers to build their own software.

40
00:03:30.220 --> 00:03:36.500
Just look at this example. Here, the user can simply type in what they

41
00:03:36.500 --> 00:03:44.520
want, and Meridian thinks about the requirement, understands all the different tables, columns,

42
00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:48.760
AI workloads, and functions, and builds it for them.

43
00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:53.700
But it's not a vendor lock-in solution where you just create it and

44
00:03:53.700 --> 00:03:57.380
now you have to call Kiran every time you have to change something.

45
00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:04.160
You can now customize it, configure it, enhance it — by building the software.

46
00:04:04.820 --> 00:04:07.920
You can start as an ID card system and then decide to add a

47
00:04:07.920 --> 00:04:12.360
parking management system, bookstore management system, and library system using this platform.

48
00:04:14.510 --> 00:04:16.710
You don't have to take my word for it. Look at some of the

49
00:04:16.710 --> 00:04:20.310
use cases that your peers at California have created.

50
00:04:20.970 --> 00:04:26.250
Marina came to us a few months ago and said, "Kiran, Chancellor Christian wants

51
00:04:26.250 --> 00:04:30.830
us to implement this new product for CVC so that I can expand my

52
00:04:30.830 --> 00:04:35.990
enrollments from 350,000 students to over a million students by 2030."

53
00:04:36.890 --> 00:04:41.450
So we created a platform that allows CVC to go to the students when

54
00:04:41.450 --> 00:04:44.850
they search for a course to register, rather than students coming to CVC.

55
00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:52.020
Gary came to us with this problem where the advanced degree transfer between CSU

56
00:04:52.020 --> 00:04:58.960
systems and California Community College systems was incredibly cumbersome. And within two months, we've

57
00:04:58.960 --> 00:05:03.200
been able to build a portal that allows them to truly build a software

58
00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:05.580
using the power of AI.

59
00:05:05.780 --> 00:05:09.940
Dr. Lee saw what we did with San Diego Canyon College and wanted us to

60
00:05:09.940 --> 00:05:14.060
implement it at the system level, and we created the CPL platform as well.

61
00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:19.820
And you all know the story of Orion, which started as an implementation plan

62
00:05:19.820 --> 00:05:23.980
with Foothill-De Anza. Now it's implemented at CCC Tech and everybody else.

63
00:05:25.290 --> 00:05:29.660
You can hear all about it at the panel discussion tomorrow, and you can

64
00:05:29.660 --> 00:05:34.160
meet Dr. Lee, Marina, Jory, and Gary and hear from them directly.

65
00:05:35.760 --> 00:05:39.060
But as I wrap up, I want to talk about the human skills in

66
00:05:39.060 --> 00:05:43.340
the autonomous world. What I did not tell you is that of the five million

67
00:05:43.340 --> 00:05:48.940
lines of code, as a CEO — I myself have written over 1.2 million

68
00:05:48.940 --> 00:05:51.240
lines of code in the last six months.

69
00:05:52.280 --> 00:05:56.680
I didn't write it — I co-authored it by using our code generation agents.

70
00:05:58.180 --> 00:06:04.140
But one other thing I did along with that is I was actually enjoying

71
00:06:04.140 --> 00:06:08.360
my life. I traveled to Brazil with my fiancée, Jin.

72
00:06:08.700 --> 00:06:11.700
We went to India and got engaged in front of my family.

73
00:06:12.400 --> 00:06:17.500
We went to China. And I remember distinctly when I was going to the Great

74
00:06:17.500 --> 00:06:21.640
Wall of China, giving instructions to Meridian, saying, "hey, I'm about to go

75
00:06:21.640 --> 00:06:25.440
offline for a few hours, go build this for me by the time I

76
00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:32.550
come back." So my call for you is that if you use AI better,

77
00:06:33.110 --> 00:06:39.270
if you use platforms like Meridian better, you can truly experience life and truly

78
00:06:39.270 --> 00:06:43.150
enjoy life and truly get your life back.

79
00:06:44.580 --> 00:06:50.540
My call for you is that as the autonomous world becomes more autonomous, we

80
00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:52.440
will be able to aim higher.

81
00:06:53.080 --> 00:06:56.840
We will be able to dream bigger. We will be able to plan better.

82
00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:58.680
We will be able to travel better.

83
00:06:59.840 --> 00:07:02.760
And I think that is the beauty of where we are entering.

84
00:07:03.420 --> 00:07:07.720
Yes, there are some issues with what it impacts and how it impacts, and

85
00:07:07.720 --> 00:07:12.200
we'll talk about it as well. But if you want to truly experience Meridian

86
00:07:12.200 --> 00:07:19.220
and implement — or build — your first enterprise product without any technical background whatsoever, without

87
00:07:19.220 --> 00:07:24.840
any understanding of database or enterprise application, please sign up by using this QR

88
00:07:24.840 --> 00:07:29.740
code. We're doing a workshop on Friday where you can build your first enterprise

89
00:07:29.740 --> 00:07:31.600
application by yourself.

90
00:07:32.690 --> 00:07:33.010
Thank you.