GDS hosted the alumni networking event Net @ Night on Jan. 29, the first time the school has served as the event’s venue. The annual gathering was held in the lower/middle school flex performance space and organized in collaboration with alumni offices from Flint Hill, Holton-Arms and The Potomac School. This year’s focus was on artificial intelligence in the workplace. It’s the first time GDS has hosted an alumni event on the topic.
The event featured a keynote by Rohit Bhargava, a Potomac School alum and bestselling author, who spoke about “non-obvious thinking”— a mindset meant to identify overlooked trends—and the ways AI is reshaping industries. Attendees, including alumni from the participating schools, engaged in networking activities and discussions about how AI is influencing careers and professional development.
“This is the third time GDS has participated in Net @ Night and the first time we’ve hosted it,” Correy Hudson, GDS’ director of alumni engagement, said. “We wanted to make sure people left not just having met others, but also having learned something relevant to their professional lives.”
While previous Net @ Night events have broadly focused on career connections, this year’s AI-centered theme was selected by alumni directors from the four organizing schools for its growing relevance in the job market. “AI is such a hot topic right now, and we wanted to ensure that alumni could take away something practical—something they could apply in their careers,” Hudson said.
Participants heard from an industry professional—Bhargava—and engaged in a structured networking exercise, which encouraged attendees to share “non-obvious” facts about themselves as conversation starters.
The event began at 6 p.m. with attendees mingling and networking around green, high-top tables with small appetizers such as crab, steak, salad, rolls with avocado and a charcuterie spread.
Two GDS alumni were in attendance: Alexis Joiner ’96 and David Forscey ’07. Joiner, who works in public health and health security, said she was drawn to the event by both the opportunity to reconnect with alumni and the AI focus. “AI has a lot of potential applications in health care,” she said. Joiner added that many organizations, including her own, are actively developing frameworks for AI integration into health care.
Forscey, a cyber defense specialist for the federal government, described the discussion as thought-provoking but said he attended primarily for the networking aspect of the event. “We work on AI issues all the time, so for me, it was more about the people,” he said.
There were roughly 50 alumni present from the four schools at the event.
Hudson noted that while AI may not have been the central interest for all attendees, many found value in the connections they made. “Even if the AI part wasn’t the biggest takeaway for them, a lot of people told me they had meaningful conversations and caught up with people they hadn’t seen in years,” he said.
Moderator Sequoia Austin, a Holton Arms alum, opened the presentation by asking how many attendees felt anxious about AI. As hands went up across the room—from nearly all in attendance—she acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding the technology before asking Bhargava to talk about AI’s implications in the workplace.
Throughout the presentation, Bhargava discussed the potential impacts of and trends in AI. “In the near term, at least, you’re not going to lose your job to AI, but you might lose your job to someone who uses AI better than you do,” he said.
Bhargava fielded questions from Austin and the audience on AI’s potential impact on various fields. Attendees asked about AI’s potential to disrupt fields such as law, film and urban planning.
“There’s a lot of work in film that’s very kind of task-oriented, in terms of editing and repetitive tasks, which is something that is very well suited to using AI for,” Bhargava said in his presentation. “I think whether you’re in film or any other industry, the only answer right now is that you have to know what AI is capable of by trying it. So, experimentation is the thing you can do.”
Next, Bhargava addressed the question about the law. “The legal industry is probably one of the industries that’s going to be the most disrupted for people at the entry level,” he said. Bhargava added that many research tasks law firms carry out can be completed by AI.
Joiner said she came to the event because of AI’s potential applications to her career in health. “A report came out recently across the government that said AI applications have the most opportunities, specifically in the healthcare domain, in terms of applications and integrations,” she said.
Hudson said the school plans to continue hosting career-oriented networking events. “We’re just looking forward to doing more events like this where alumni get a chance to connect,” he said. “You know, we want to make sure that our alumni stay engaged—it’s a two-way relationship with GDS, and we hope to see even more alumni take part in the future”