Mr. Pixels’ Opus

Connecting Discovery and Learning: WiscNet as a Bridge Between Research and Education Cyberinfrastructure

On Thursday, April 30, from 12:45 pm to 3:00 pm, WiscNet is hosting a focused, invitation-drivenworking session at SentryWorld in Stevens Point — immediately following WiscNet Connections 2026.

This isn't a vendor demo. It isn't a panel. It's a room full of people who feel this gap firsthand, working through a real question together: Can WiscNet be the bridge between researchers with advanced infrastructure and educators who need meaningful access to it for student learning around artificial intelligence?

Why WiscNet

Right now WiscNet moves bits reliably. That's table stakes. We want to move people and ideas — to be the organization in the room that knows both the researcher with spare GPU capacity at UW–Madison and the instructor at a technical college in Wausau who needs it. That's a different business entirely.

WiscNet already operates across K-12, higher education, and research institutions. We already have the trust. We already understand identity, compliance, and what it takes to get something approved inside a real Wisconsin organization. What we don't yet have is the formal coordination layer between research infrastructure and educational use. That's what this session is about designing.

What We'll Work Through

We're not presenting a plan. We're building one — with the people in the room. The session will focus on:

• Matchmaking — how do we connect researchers who have excess capacity with educators who have curricular needs?

• Governance — what frameworks ensure responsible, secure, and sustainable shared use?

• Infrastructure — what distributed computing models serve both communities without compromising research performance?

• Funding alignment — how do we plug into national investments like NSF's ACCESS program and the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) that are designed to support exactly this kind of regional intermediary?

How to Get In — Free

1. Register for WiscNet Connections 2026.

2. Enter discount code mrpixels — your ticket is $0.

April 30th. 12:45 pm. SentryWorld, Stevens Point. Bring your hardest question.

On one side of the equation are researchers. Many principal investigators (PIs) and research computing teams operate sophisticated distributed computing environments, specialized datasets, AI/ML platforms, and domain-specific tools. In some cases, they even have excess compute capacity. Yet they often lack the time, networks, or support structures needed to identify educators who could meaningfully use these resources in the classroom. Even when interest exists, translating research infrastructure into educational use requires coordination, support, and trust—things that individual labs are not structured to provide at scale.

On the other side are educators—faculty, instructional designers, and academic leaders—who increasingly want their students learning with the tools, data, and environments that define modern research and industry practice. They want authenticity. They want relevance. They want their students working with advanced AI models, large datasets, high-performance computing, or emerging cyberinfrastructure platforms. But educators often struggle to find partners, navigate access pathways, or secure sustainable support for integrating research-grade infrastructure into curricula.

I already registered for WiscNet Connections. What is this session, exactly, and is it different from the rest of the conference?

Yes—intentionally. The main conference is a strong event designed for broad audiences across many topics. This session, Connecting Discovery and Learning, is something narrower and more deliberate: a focused, invitation-driven conversation in the second half of April 30. Think fewer slides and more dialogue. We are not gathering for a vendor demo or a series of panels. We are gathering to work through a real question together: How do we build shared infrastructure for research and education in Wisconsin? If you are used to leaving conferences with a tote bag and no next step, this is meant to feel different.

Why was I specifically invited? What do you think I bring to this?

Because this problem will not be solved by people who all look the same on paper. We need technologists who understand what shared infrastructure actually costs to run. We need educators who can articulate what their students actually need—not what a vendor told them they need. We need institutional leaders who understand governance, compliance, and what it takes to get something like this approved inside a real organization. You were invited because we believe you bring one of those perspectives in a way that is grounded, honest, and Wisconsin-specific. We are not assembling a panel of keynote speakers. We are convening a working group, and we need people who are willing to tell us when we are wrong.

I am not a researcher. I do not run a compute cluster. Why would this conversation be relevant to me?

That is precisely why your perspective matters. The people who run compute clusters are often very good at building systems for other people who run compute clusters. What they consistently struggle with is translating those resources into something an educator or a student can actually use. Your perspective—“here is what I need, here is where the friction is, here is what my students are missing”—is exactly the kind of input that determines whether this becomes meaningful infrastructure or just another well-intentioned pilot that never gets adopted. The demand side of this equation matters just as much as the supply side.

What are you actually asking me to commit to by attending?

Two hours of your honest attention on April 30. That is the minimum. We are not asking you to sign a memorandum of understanding, join a committee, or promise budget dollars. What we do hope is that you leave with enough clarity about the opportunity—and enough confidence in the people in the room—to want to stay involved in whatever comes next. And if you attend, listen, and decide this is not for you, we will respect that. But we would rather have you make that judgment from inside the room than from a summary email afterward.

Hasn’t this been tried before? Why will this time be different?

Honestly, yes—versions of this have been tried before. Research-education partnerships get announced, pilot projects launch, and then quietly disappear when the grant ends or the champion leaves. What gives this effort a better chance is that we are not starting with a technology deployment. We are starting with a governance and coordination problem. WiscNet’s position—already trusted by members and already operating across K-12, higher education, and research institutions—gives us a neutral convening role that individual institutions cannot easily play on their own. We are also intentionally aligning with national funding streams, such as NAIRR, that are designed to support exactly this kind of regional intermediary. The goal is to build something that does not depend on any one person’s enthusiasm to survive.

My organization has serious concerns about data security and compliance for shared infrastructure. How do you address that?

We take that concern seriously because it is one of the core design problems to solve. The answer is not “trust us, it will be fine.” The answer is that governance frameworks, tiered access models, identity federation, and security segmentation have to be built into this from the start—not bolted on later. WiscNet already understands the identity and compliance landscape for Wisconsin institutions. Part of this session is about surfacing those concerns early, so we can design the right fence posts before anything is built at scale. Skepticism here is not an obstacle. It is an asset.

What does WiscNet actually get out of this? Is this about selling us something?

WiscNet is a member-owned cooperative. There is no product pitch coming. What WiscNet gets out of this—if it works—is a more relevant and more valuable role in Wisconsin’s innovation ecosystem. Right now, we are very good at reliably moving bits. That matters, but over time it also becomes more commoditized. If WiscNet can credibly serve as the connector between research infrastructure and educational use, we become something harder to replicate and more deeply embedded in what our members are trying to accomplish. This is strategic positioning for WiscNet’s long-term relevance. We also believe it is the right thing to do for Wisconsin. Both can be true at the same time.

How does artificial intelligence actually fit into this? Is this just AI hype dressed up in cyberinfrastructure language?

The cyberinfrastructure issue is real, whether AI is involved or not. The gap between research computing and educational access has existed for decades. AI makes that gap more urgent because it is one of the clearest examples of a technology where students who interact only with simplified, abstracted versions will be underprepared for what the workforce actually looks like. The tools that matter—real model training, large-scale data, GPU compute—live on research infrastructure that most educational institutions cannot easily access. That is why this cannot wait another ten years. We are not talking about the hype version of AI. We are talking about the boring, expensive, operationally complex version—the one that requires real infrastructure to learn on.

What does success look like in year one, year three, and beyond?

Year one is about building the launchpad: convening the right people at WiscNet Connections, demonstrating that we can host a small AI node (the sub-$5K PixelWorks box connected to the National Research Platform), and establishing WiscNet as a credible participant in the national cyberinfrastructure conversation.

Year three is about rallying the community around AI with shared purpose—ideally anchored by NSF funding that formalizes WiscNet’s role as a regional cyberinfrastructure facilitator.

Year ten is the long view: a functioning bridge between research and education in Wisconsin, where a student at a technical college in Wausau can work on the same infrastructure a researcher at UW–Madison uses. Discovery informs learning in real time. That is the vision.

By September 2026, we want to be able to report the following to the WiscNet membership:

• At least 10 documented conversations between researchers with available capacity and educators with curricular interest, facilitated through WiscNet introductions

• A submitted NSF grant proposal or a formal letter of intent in an Internet2 solicitation with WiscNet named as a regional node

• A working proof of concept—the NRP-connected compute node—with at least one educational use case demonstrated on it

• A named community of practice—“PixelWorks”—with at least 20 active members from across the WiscNet membership who have opted in and are meeting regularly

• A one-page governance framework outlining how shared infrastructure access would work, vetted by at least three member institutions

If we cannot show those five things by fall 2026, we will need to have an honest conversation about whether to continue.

This interactive storytelling tool is designed to help WiscNet members practice responding to cyber threats in realistic scenarios. Users choose a role on the cybersecurity incident response team. Through engaging, guided simulations set in the fictional community of Sudden Valley, Wisconsin, users face escalating challenges such as ransomware and phishing attacks. They make strategic decisions, roll dice to determine outcomes, and learn incident response best practices in a gamified experience.

See the prompt used to generate this scenario.

This is a practical guide for handling real cybersecurity incidents without panic or finger-pointing. Built on **NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0**, it walks organizations through what to do _before, during, and after_ an incident using the CSF functions: Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. Instead of vague policy fluff, it focuses on clear roles, decision points, communication paths, and repeatable actions.