Two practitioners.
One stage.
They publicly disagree.
An evening built on the one thing most conferences avoid. Real practitioners taking opposite sides of the questions shaping AI, design, and product, in front of a room that came to think harder.
WHAT IS DUEL?
One topic. Two practitioners. No safe answers.
Most conferences put experts on stage to confirm what the audience already believes. The Nivan Duel does the opposite. We put two practitioners on stage to challenge each other, in the open, on the questions there is no clean answer to yet.
No keynote theater. No safe answers. Just two people willing to be wrong in public, and a room sharp enough to keep them honest.
Duel 01
Generalistvs Specialist
When AI can do the execution, is deep expertise your moat or your cage?
AI collapsed the cost of execution. One person with AI can now research, design, and build. The future belongs to those who cover the whole field, not one corner of it.
When everyone can produce everything, the room fills with confident garbage. The person who can tell good from bad becomes more valuable, not less. Depth is the last differentiator.
Duel 02
Build Fast vs Build Right
When AI can make anything in an afternoon, does craft still matter?
Speed is the strategy. Ship it, learn from it, let AI rebuild it tomorrow. Polishing something nobody has used yet is the real waste.
Fast is how you drown in your own output. Quality, security, and understanding what you shipped still decide who survives. The bill for careless speed always arrives.
Sponsors & Partners
Speaker 1 of 4
Denise Miqueli
Director of Product Design
Zumba Fitness
Denise Miqueli is Director of Product Design & Research at Zumba Fitness, the dance-fitness brand known worldwide, leading UX strategy across mobile, web, and connected platforms for millions of weekly users in 180+ countries. With 15+ years shaping digital products for global audiences, she's developing "Directing Agentic Design" — a model for how design teams work with AI. She also founded Pin Pan Pun & Co., a Cuban-rooted publishing brand born from a personal project, bringing an entrepreneur's eye for storytelling and brand-building to her design work.
Speaker 2 of 4
Pavi Gupta
Founder, The Insight Exchange
Former VP/Insights Lead Coca-Cola, J&J, SCJ, Chobani
Pavi Gupta is a globally recognized leader in Insights, Analytics, and AI with 30+ years of experience at iconic companies like Kantar, The Coca-Cola Company, Johnson & Johnson, SC Johnson, and Chobani, leveraging consumer insights to drive business growth. As Founder of TIEx (The Insight Exchange) and creator of The Infinity Growth Loop, a framework featured by Forbes and presented at Harvard Business School, he is helping organizations reimagine decision-making for the AI era by combining human insight with artificial intelligence to drive smarter, more effective outcomes.
Speaker 3 of 4
Karen Semone
Founder & Principal, Team Uncanny
Ex-Vice President, Innovation, Salesforce
Karen Semone built Salesforce's first cross-industry innovation studio and, before that, led agency work for IBM, Slack, Cargill, and other Fortune 500 companies and startups. Today she runs Team Uncanny, a new model of consultancy comprising senior fractional executives at the intersection of emerging technology and creative services. She 's a digital storyteller, idea incubator, and CXO conviction-builder who speaks on the future of work, AI-Human collaboration, and business transformation.
Speaker 4 of 4
Eric Boggs
Principal Designer & Founder
Athenahealth
Eric Boggs is a Principal Designer at athenahealth, where he works on patient experience for a portal used by more than eight million people a month. Twelve years in healthcare taught him that the hardest problems are rarely technical. Off the clock he runs Summit Health, an SMS coaching platform he designed, built, and shipped himself using AI as a development partner. He is a Mayo Clinic trained health and wellness coach and a former design professor at Austin Center for Design. He believes deliberate work, sometimes slow work, is how you build the right thing: real user research, real stakeholder alignment, real patient safety frameworks. AI does not get to skip them.
An intimate room, a real argument, and a winner the room decides.
Live, head to head
Each duel is a real exchange between two practitioners taking genuinely opposing positions, not a panel that quietly agrees.
The room picks a winner
You are not a spectator. The Nivan community weighs in, pushes back, and votes on who made the stronger argument.
Built for builders
Made for the people shipping AI, design, and product work, the ones who live with these tradeoffs every day.
Stay for the table
The conversation does not end on stage. Over dinner, the room keeps debating long after the last duel is called.
Welcome to Avli on the Park
Nestled beside Millennium Park and just steps from Lake Michigan, Avlí on the Park offers a vibrant setting where exceptional cuisine, inspiring conversations, and unforgettable connections come together. We look forward to welcoming you for an evening to remember.
