Wichita Collaborates with Serviti Corps and Newman University on Launch of the Wichita Accord, Announce Oct. 26 Public Forum

At a Glance

• What: The Wichita Accord, an initiative to prepare people across Wichita to understand artificial intelligence, weigh its risks and opportunities, and an invitation to engage directly and meaningfully with the people building it. Visit https://www.wichitaaccord.org for more information.
• Who: Serviti Corps (practitioner) and Newman University (Wichita convener)
• When: Public Forum on October 26, 2026, leading further engagements.
• Focus: AI safety, human dignity and the common good.
• Contact: info@wichitaaccord.org

WICHITA, Kan., Oct. 19, 2026 — Serviti Corps and Newman University today announced the Wichita Accord, an initiative to prepare people across Wichita to understand, respond to and have a meaningful voice in a future increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

The effort aims to bring people developing advanced AI into direct conversation with workers, employers, educators, students, parents, caregivers, civic and faith communities and others experiencing its effects, with a focus on AI safety, human dignity and the common good.

“A university should help people meet change with both understanding and a voice in what comes next,” said Newman University President Kathleen Jagger. “For Newman, that means bringing our Catholic commitment to human dignity into an open conversation with people across professions, faiths and viewpoints.”

The Wichita Accord is a community-preparation and engagement initiative based on a simple premise: no single profession, institution or community can see the full consequences of a technological transition.

A researcher may understand the capabilities of an AI system while a worker sees how it changes a job. An educator may recognize effects on learning. A caregiver may see risks to someone who depends on others. People with disabilities, people facing serious illness, and people experiencing incarceration, homelessness or other profound changes in agency and circumstance may encounter questions of autonomy, institutional power, vulnerability and human dignity from perspectives rarely represented in conversations about advanced technology.

Those perspectives are not included for the sake of representation. They are forms of knowledge. The Accord aims to bring them into the same room, surface risks and opportunities that would otherwise be missed, strengthen human agency and identify practical steps Wichita can take as AI advances.

“Artificial intelligence will create new opportunities and challenges for Wichita's economy, workforce and families. Our residents deserve a voice in how this technology shapes their future,” said Wichita Mayor Lily Wu. “I'm excited that Wichita will help lead this conversation by bringing our community together with the researchers and innovators developing these technologies. This is an opportunity to make sure the Heartland has a seat at the table as AI transforms our world.”

The Wichita Accord process kicks off with a public listening and informational forum which will be held Oct. 26, 2026, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Dugan-Gorges Conference Center at Newman University. The public event will include Q&A and discussion. Visit the town hall webpage at https://ai.newmanu.edu/accord/public-forum to learn more and RSVP. For more information on the Wichita Accord, visit https://www.wichitaaccord.org or email info@wichitaaccord.org.

Preparation Before Participation

The Wichita Accord is not a class on how to use AI tools. It is not a technology conference or a public listening session. It begins one step earlier, by giving people a real chance to understand what they are being asked to think about.

Serviti Corps, serving as practitioner, will lead a structured preparation process tailored to participants’ backgrounds, experiences and roles. Participants will examine and, where appropriate, interact firsthand with examples of emerging technologies, consider current capabilities and plausible future developments, encounter competing perspectives and distinguish what is known from areas of genuine uncertainty.

Preparation will address both current AI and the possibility of substantially more capable systems. Participants will be introduced to concepts commonly discussed within AI and technology communities, including artificial general intelligence, superintelligence, AI agents and alignment, as well as the possibility that increasingly capable systems could contribute to the development of even more capable successors.

The purpose is not to present uncertain futures as inevitable or tell participants what to believe. It is to give them enough understanding to challenge the ideas presented to them, ask better questions, recognize consequences others may overlook and bring knowledge from their own lives and fields into the larger conversation.

“Knowing how to use AI shouldn’t be a prerequisite for having a voice in the future it creates,” said John McElligott, CEO of Serviti Corps. “The companies developing the most powerful artificial intelligence systems in history are preparing for scenarios ranging from extraordinary abundance to potentially catastrophic outcomes. The people whose lives will be transformed by these technologies deserve to be just as prepared as the people building them. We cannot afford to wait until these technologies fundamentally change our lives before giving people the understanding, resources, and agency to shape what comes next. Preparedness isn’t about predicting the future or fearing the worst. It’s about ensuring people have a meaningful role in determining their own future.”

“Equality doesn’t begin when Wichita meets Silicon Valley. It begins when Wichita meets itself,” McElligott continued. “A mayor may sit beside a parent, an AI researcher beside a person with a disability. They bring different expertise, and each may understand something the others do not. Much of the AI alignment conversation asks how we align AI with human values. We also need to ask: whose values? Human alignment doesn’t mean human agreement. It means making sure people have enough understanding and agency to participate in shaping the answer.”

Knowledge That Rarely Reaches the Same Room

The road to the Accord will include public education, preparation, community engagement and outreach through trusted local institutions. Workers, employers, educators, students, parents, caregivers and civic and faith communities will help shape the questions and priorities that emerge from the process.

Organizers will also intentionally seek participation from people whose perspectives are often absent from conversations about advanced AI, including:

• People with disabilities and their caregivers
• People facing serious or life-limiting illnesses and their families
• People experiencing homelessness
• People who are incarcerated or returning from incarceration

Their participation is not simply about broadening representation. People encounter questions of autonomy, vulnerability, opportunity, dependence, institutional power, mortality and human dignity from profoundly different positions. Those experiences may reveal consequences and tradeoffs that researchers, policymakers or technology companies do not see.

The dialogue will examine potential economic displacement, AI’s effects on learning and everyday life, risks to people and institutions that may be disproportionately affected and opportunities to improve health, education, work and human capability. Participants will identify areas of agreement and disagreement, surface concerns that may otherwise be overlooked and explore practical steps Wichita can take as AI capabilities advance.

The objective is not to manufacture consensus. Serviti Corps will lead the process. Participants will draw their own conclusions.

The exchange runs in both directions. Communities need to understand what technologists are building. The people building advanced AI need to understand the people and institutions their decisions affect.

Distinct Roles, Shared Purpose

Newman University will serve as the Wichita convener, drawing on the Newman Institute for AI & the Common Good and the university’s relationships with local professionals, businesses, educators, nonprofits, faith and civic communities and other local institutions.

Serviti Corps will serve as the program practitioner, designing and leading the Accord’s participant-preparation process. It will build and run the preparation methodology, work across institutional lines to widen participation and connect the Wichita effort with AI leaders, researchers and technologists nationally.

Human Dignity in a Technological Transition

The initiative also responds to a broader international conversation about the human consequences of increasingly capable artificial intelligence. Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, signed May 15 and published May 25, 2026, called renewed attention to human dignity amid rapid technological change. At its Vatican presentation, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah stated, “We need informed critics who will tell the labs when we are failing. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.”

Olah and Anthropic are not affiliated with the Wichita Accord.

The Wichita Accord will welcome people across religious, political, professional and socioeconomic lines. Participation does not require agreement with the organizers, participating institutions or one another.

Beginning in Wichita

Wichita will be the first community where the Accord model is developed and put into practice. What is learned in Wichita will also help shape preparation materials and methods that can be evaluated, improved, and adapted for other communities. The process is intended to produce a public account of community priorities, concerns and areas of disagreement; identify practical steps Wichita institutions and communities can consider; and document lessons that can strengthen future community preparedness.

AI companies, researchers, community organizations, civic institutions, philanthropic organizations and individuals interested in participating in or supporting the Wichita Accord are invited to visit https://www.wichitaaccord.org or contact info@wichitaaccord.org. Expressing interest does not commit any person or organization to a statement or policy position.

About Serviti Corps

Serviti Corps is building a new kind of service organization—first responders to the AI tsunami—to help individuals, families, and communities prepare for, navigate or prevent the disruption caused by artificial intelligence, robotics, and other exponential technologies. Working with trusted institutions and community networks, including Rotary clubs, Goodwill organizations, educational institutions, civic and faith organizations, and local and state governments, Serviti Corps trains and equips veterans, civilians, families, technologists, and community leaders to anticipate and respond to and prevent disruption. Its mission is to strengthen community resilience, deploy practical solutions, protect the innocent, and preserve human agency—so we all make it home.

Learn more at https://serviticorps.com.

About the Newman Institute for AI & the Common Good

The Newman Institute for AI & the Common Good at Newman University helps individuals, organizations and communities engage with artificial intelligence in ways that strengthen human judgment, dignify work and serve the common good.

Learn more at https://ai.newmanu.edu.

Media Contact

Clark Schafer, Director of University Relations
Newman University
316-942-4291
schaferc@newmanu.edu