SPEAKERS

February 9, 2026

John Licato, PhD is founder/CEO of AI startup Actualization AI, Inc. He is also is an Associate Professor at the USF Bellini College of AI, Cybersecurity and Computing and Director of the USF Advancing Machine and Human Reasoning (AMHR) Lab. He designed and teaches the natural language processing course (the field that created ChatGPT) at USF, and his lab's mission is to not only make AI smarter, but to use those advances to make people reason better as well. His research expertise lies in AI, NLP, human reasoning, cognitive modeling, and legal / regulatory reasoning, with over 100 peer-reviewed publications. He has been featured in outlets such as NPR's Marketplace Tech, ABC Action News, Forbes, and the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

Actualization.AI is a startup founded by USF AI researchers building hallucination-resistant AI for high-stakes procurement and proposal workflows. They develop verifiable AI systems designed to shorten procurement cycles and reduce risk in enterprise and government contracting. Their flagship product SquarePact™ helps procurement teams and vendors analyze contracts, RFPs, and proposals by surfacing hidden risks, compliance issues, and likely objections from stakeholders such as legal, IT, finance, and regulators. SquarePact enables users to simulate reviewer perspectives, prepare negotiation strategies, and improve proposal quality, so teams can move faster, anticipate delays, and negotiate from a position of clarity rather than guesswork. They are members of Embarc Collective, TiE Tampa, Tampa Bay Technology Incubator, Tampa Bay Wave 2025 Tech|X Accelerator, and Plug&Play Smart Cities 2025 Cohort.