Connors Foundation for Catholic Activities (CFCA) founder Tim Connors will present “AI for the Common Good,” on Tuesday, March 4 at the Servus Omnium 2025 breakfast and lecture at the University of Saint Francis.
The event, presented by Catholic Charities, Saint Francis, Catholic Community Foundation of Northeast Indiana and St. Joseph Community Health Foundation, begins at 7 a.m. at the Saint Francis North Campus Gymnasium, 2702 Spring Street. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door and $200 for a table. Registration is available at go.sf.edu/servus-omnium.
Connors’ lecture is sure to spark discussion. A lifelong Catholic and native of Fort Wayne, Connors founded and is the managing partner of PivotNorth Capital, a venture capital firm investing in world-class computer scientists working to solve the world’s biggest problems. Connors and his wife Wendy are also philanthropists, founding and building the Connors Foundation for Catholic Activities (CFCA) with their three children. CFCA funded the first software developer ever to work in the Vatican, and helps make an impact on child safety, homelessness, hunger, mental health, climate change and parish vitality.
Here are “Five Questions with Tim Connors” as a preview of his Servus Omnium presentation:
Q. Are people overly afraid of Artificial Intelligence or is there the right amount of skepticism and concern?
A. Folks should be more concerned than they are about AGI—artificial general intelligence. In the wrong hands, it can be destructive. Folks should be excited about Agentic AI—AI that helps humans be more human. It will have very positive effects, but be very disruptive for certain labor classes, so Catholic Charities will be very busy.
Q. What are some of the broadest potential benefits of AI?
A. We will talk Tuesday about how AI-enabled system solutions are going to solve the grand challenges for the three customers of Catholic social teaching: the vulnerable family, the planet and the Church. If you are interested in how AI has reduced maternal mortality in Rwanda by 52%, come Tuesday. If you want to hear how AI will solve hunger in America, and homelessness, come Tuesday.
Q. What are the most obvious potential worrisome aspects of AI?
A. AGI that decides to hurt vs. help humans. Meta’s products depress hundreds of millions of our kids today and that is with a fairly simple algorithm. AGI can manipulate, for good or bad, far more impactfully. The question is whether it will choose Jesus’ rules or Mark Zuckerberg’s rules. More on this on Tuesday.
Q. What was the experience like for you to speak at the Vatican on this issue?
A. Being invited to the Vatican was such an honor. To have meaningful things to add to the world’s most important institution on how they help the vulnerable family, the planet and the Church was a pinch-me moment for a little kid from Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Q. What do you most hope to impart on the audience at Servus Omnium next Tuesday? A. To inspire them to get active using AI to help them do well while doing good at scale beyond what they perhaps ever thought possible. To have the group come together after and collaborate using the system solutions enabled by AI to help all Fort Wayne families to thrive. Prove it in Fort Wayne and take it to the world.