State Officials Gather for the Rhode Island Digital Government Summit 2026
State technology leaders, cybersecurity experts, and local agency directors convened for the Rhode Island Digital Government Summit 2026, marking a quarter-century of public-sector technological evolution. According to the event schedule published by events.govtech.com, the conference opened Wednesday, May 20, at 8:00 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom Foyer of the venue, drawing officials to address artificial intelligence deployment, cloud migration strategies, and enterprise risk management.
Brian Tardiff, Chief Digital Officer for the Division of Enterprise Technology Strategy and Services for the State of Rhode Island, delivered opening remarks at 9:00 a.m. in Grand Ballroom Salons 3 through 5. The morning agenda immediately pivoted to artificial intelligence integration, featuring a keynote address by futurist and bestselling author Jonathan Brill titled AI and the Octopus Organization™: Adapt or Fail. Brill outlined models where centralized strategy pairs with decentralized teams designed to make real-time decisions.
The morning sessions also marked a historical milestone for public administration. A retrospective titled 25 Years of Digital Government: How Technology, Policy and Public Service Evolved — and What Comes Next contrasted the digital landscape of 2001—when digital government meant converting paper forms into static PDF downloads—with today’s cloud-native infrastructure and real-time resident services. Zach Patton, chief editor of the content studio at e.Republic, led the forward-looking strategy session.
State Officials Tackle Zero-Trust Implementation
By late morning, proceedings broke into specialized concurrent tracks addressing infrastructure security and cloud adoption frameworks. In Grand Ballroom Salon 1, state officials tackled zero-trust implementation. Nathan Loura, Chief Information Security Officer for Rhode Island’s Division of Enterprise Technology Strategy and Services, moderated a panel featuring Chris Abbott of Riptide Technologies, Gregg Cranshaw of the Rhode Island Department of State, David Marble of OSHEAN Inc., and Nilay Patel of Accenture.
Simultaneously in Salon 2, Sanjay Gupta, Chief Technology Officer for the state’s Division of Enterprise Technology Strategy and Services, led a discussion on building practical cloud strategies. Panelists including Johan Calderon of Providence College, Philip Carlucci of the City of Warwick, and Ananda S. Murthy of Smartronix examined public versus commercial cloud models and methods to prevent cloud sprawl.
Across the hall in Plaza Ballroom AB, data governance took center stage. Scott Gausland, Chief Data and Analytics Officer for the state, moderated a panel on data maturity models. Jessica Cigna of the Rhode Island Department of State, Sarah Cote of the Rhode Island Longitudinal Data System, Santiago Guerrero of the Rhode Island Department of Education, and Rebecca Lebeau of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services discussed alignment between enterprise strategy and compliance frameworks.
Operationalizing Artificial Intelligence Action Plans
Afternoon programming turned directly toward practical execution of emerging technologies. At 1:00 p.m., Brian Tardiff moderated an in-depth update on the state’s AI Action Plan. Former Congressman Jim Langevin, distinguished chair of the Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies at Rhode Island College and chair of the Governor’s AI Task Force, spoke alongside Timothy Henry, chair of the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at Rhode Island College, and Chris Parisi, vice chair of the Governor’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force.
Rapid-fire lightning talks followed, showcasing municipal and higher education use cases. Zach Patton moderated presentations from Nick Craig, director of information technology for the City of Newport; Scott Gausland; and Chuck LoCurto, vice president for information services and chief information officer at Bryant University.
Later afternoon sessions addressed enterprise risk management and IT governance. Mike Tetreault, a cybersecurity advisor for Rhode Island with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, moderated a risk management panel featuring Michael Forlingieri of North Kingstown, Terrance Jackson of the Rhode Island Department of State, Amit Sehrawat of Salesforce, and Jim Silveria of the City of Providence.
Rhode Island College Leads Interactive Attack Simulation
Before the day’s final events, Douglas Alexander, director of the Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies at Rhode Island College, led an interactive simulation titled Anatomy of an Attack.
The summit concluded with the presentation of the Rhode Island Excellence in Technology Awards in Grand Ballroom Salons 3 through 5, followed by closing remarks from Brian Tardiff at 4:35 p.m. and a networking reception in the exhibit area.
