Bridging Academia and Innovation: Exploring Open Source and AI in a Hyper-Regulated Sector

When you truly connect with your surroundings, the answers you seek will find you.

Suddenly, sunny March has arrived while finals are just around the corner, and our graduation is just a few weeks away as we navigate lectures, papers, and assignments. I can’t believe I am about to complete this phase—one that once seemed so distant. Soon, this will become another achievement that will resonate forever in my mind after a huge investment of time and effort.

Before finishing my program, I wanted to take a lecture focused on technology applied to an overregulated sector, such as the government. The complexity of these entities always adds extra layers of facts and variables, requiring a strategic balance to provide accurate smart-risk advice on complex decision-making processes.

Therefore, the National Security and Data Privacy lecture was a good fit. Since I already have practical experience in both the private and public sectors, this was a great opportunity to revisit familiar topics with fresh eyes, and engage with peers who share similar interests in technology. 

Since tech history is being written as we speak, I have been enjoying every minute of the lecture. The professor, a former compliance head from a well-known Big Tech in the U.S., is highly knowledgeable in management and strategy with a notorious specialization in cybersecurity, making each session intellectually stimulating. Likewise, the class is full of tech-oriented professionals and students, many of whom are currently working in the public sector, while others are tech-savvy. Their perspectives and insights consistently enrich our discussions (I am glad to be able to share my local and global perspectives).

Throughout the course, we have explored tech-policy, AI, data privacy, drones, deepfakes, cyberattacks, and the ethics of technology, among others. Something that deeply attracted my attention was the Deep Seek AI solution, which besides distillation and the media hype, it’s important to deep dive and identify the cutting edge enhancements based in Open source and efficiency. As well, the Stargate project, announced in January 2025, is a project that is noteworthy, since their main goal is to strengthen the AI infrastructure.

Reflecting on these ideas, I’ve chosen to write my final evaluation paper on Open Source and Efficient Data Usage. I truly believe that having an efficient usage of data will allow us to design innovations that could help us tackle problems that have been there for a long time—I can’t wait to finish it—hopefully turning it into an academic publication soon. March is such an inspiring time.

Julio Zerecero

TOPICS: International Students, LLM, Technology