NEW YORK CITY — Javits Center is one of the first major convention centers in the U.S. to deploy Wi-Fi 7 at scale. This new network was designed and built by the venue’s team and delivers significantly faster speeds, three times the capacity, enhanced security and improved reliability.
Trade Show Executive’s Young Professionals Corner connected with Timothy Gaburungyi, Javits Center’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, to learn about this new network and how the venue is embracing the AI revolution.
The Power of Wi-Fi 7
“In a building like Javits Center, Wi-Fi 7 matters because we operate one of the highest-density wireless environments you’ll find anywhere,” Gaburungyi said. “The biggest challenge we’ve always faced is congestion. Wi-Fi 7 was designed to solve that. Devices connect more easily, latency is dramatically reduced and the experience is simply faster and more reliable.
“I like to compare it to a highway. If previous Wi-Fi generations were like a three-lane road, Wi-Fi 7 is like expanding that road to eight or more lanes, with dedicated lanes for different types of traffic. Suddenly, everything flows much more smoothly. That’s exactly what happens when tens of thousands of devices are trying to connect inside a convention center.”
According to Gaburungyi, this system removes one of the biggest worries organizers have ever had: Attendees can connect without thinking about it, exhibitors can run demonstrations confidently, payment systems and streaming work reliably, and executive presentations don’t stutter at the worst possible moment.
The network also gives organizers better analytics and provides the foundation for more connected event experiences, including interactive activations and second-screen engagement.
“Our promise is very simple: Let the organizers bring the show,” Gaburungyi said. “Connectivity is our responsibility. Honestly, the best compliment we receive is silence. When nobody mentions the Wi-Fi, it means it worked exactly the way it was supposed to. Guests should never think about the cables or the access points, and neither should organizers.”
Gaburungyi added that since the network is engineered specifically for Javits, they can tune it based on the type of event they are hosting.
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“A technology conference has different demands than a trade show or a special event, and because we operate everything in-house, we can adapt quickly,” Gaburungyi said. “If an organizer needs a change late in the evening, we’re not calling a vendor. We’re making the adjustment ourselves because we understand both the technology and the business. Wi-Fi 7 is really just the newest layer on a technology foundation we’ve been building for more than a decade. Technology alone doesn’t set you apart. It’s how you manage it.”
A New AI Horizon on the Hudson
AI is a major trend in the trade show world — and Javits Center is riding this wave responsibly.
“I don’t think AI is reshaping the events industry by putting robots on the show floor,” Gaburungyi said. “The real work is happening underneath all of that. It’s helping us route people better, forecast attendance, optimize staffing and spot problems before they happen.
“Everyone keeps asking, ‘What can AI do?’ I actually think the better question is, ‘What are we allowed to do, and with whose data?’ I’ve watched several waves of technology come through this building, and AI is going to be no different.”
For Gaburungyi, AI removes the friction that nobody should have to deal with.
“If someone contacts us in the middle of the night, we can respond much faster than we could before,” Gaburungyi said. “We can also look across thousands of IT service requests and recognize patterns that would have taken much longer to identify manually. Sometimes we can tell there’s a larger issue developing before it becomes obvious.
“AI is also giving us much better sightlines into how the building actually breathes — its energy, its systems [and] its spaces. We can see the data more clearly, and that helps us make better decisions.
“One thing that’s important to us is that we prefer to build many of these solutions ourselves rather than simply buying them off the shelf. We know this building. We know this business. That approach has already saved us more than a quarter of a million dollars while giving us tools designed specifically for convention centers instead of trying to adapt software built for someone else’s business.”
Javits is also using AI to build its own analytical tools. Gaburungyi’s team has developed dashboards that give them real-time insight into what’s happening during an event and they can see how many people are connected to Wi-Fi, monitor the health of our critical systems, track uptime and understand how the building is performing while an event is taking place.
“AI is also improving how we prepare for events. It helps us analyze reports, understand staffing needs and better predict the resources we’ll need to support a show,” Gaburungyi said. “Beyond IT, other departments are seeing real benefits as well. Human Resources uses AI to analyze employee feedback more efficiently, and our Legal team uses AI-assisted tools to review contracts and certificates of insurance, quickly identifying anything that doesn’t align with Javits Center’s requirements. Those are practical applications that save time while improving consistency.”
AI Advice
Gaburungyi explained that while this technology is revolutionary, it should not be used blindly.
“The pitfalls are real, but they’re probably not the ones most people think about,” Gaburungyi said. “I’m less concerned about AI being wrong than I am about organizations not being ready to use it. Do you have the right guardrails? Do you have trusted data? Do you have proper governance? Those are the questions that matter. To me, AI itself isn’t the problem. Readiness is.
“The organizations that will succeed are the ones that prepare well. That’s been our philosophy at Javits Center. We don’t let the technology set the pace; we set the pace. We’ve been very deliberate about that, and it’s allowed us to grow steadily while seeing real results.”
Gaburungyi added that the organizers who are going to succeed in this era won’t necessarily be the ones with the flashiest tools: They’ll be the ones with the strongest foundation and the governance to see AI through.
Do you want to lean into AI tools? Gaburungyi’s advice is to start smaller than your ambition.
“Start with the boring stuff,” Gaburungyi said. “Leaders should spend a little time becoming familiar with AI and generative AI themselves. It doesn’t take long, but it’s important. Once you understand what these tools can do, you’re in a much better position to lead your organization.
“From there, you can put the right guardrails in place, make sure your data is ready, and identify the use cases where AI will have the biggest impact.
“This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. The people who lay the foundation today are the ones who will win tomorrow.”
Featured image credit: Courtesy of Javits Center
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