February 25, 2025 // Bishop

ND Grad: AI Has the Power to ‘Change Everything’

Scott Warden

Editor-In-Chief

Growing up on the northeast Side of Fort Wayne, Tim Connors remembers exactly when he caught the tech bug.

Tim Connors

He was a freshman in 1981 when Snider High School completed a remodel of its facilities, and being the youngest of the eight Connors kids, he was the first to have access to the school’s new VAX computer. Connors said Snider’s math teacher at the time, Mr. David Main, would come to school early and stay late to help students learn to code. “And I just took to it like a duck to water,” Connors said recently, nearly 45 years later. “I just loved it. … That’s what started me on this whole journey.”

But a love for technology is only part of the foundation on which Connors has built his career as a wildly successful venture capitalist. A strong faith life and a devotion to his family has also guided him along the way.

The Connors were stalwarts at St. Charles Borromeo, where they were members, and where each of their eight children went to grade school.

“Our entire life revolved around St. Charles,” said Connors, who will return to his hometown to speak on “AI and the Common Good” on Fat Tuesday, March 4, at the Servus Omnium Lecture at the University of Saint Francis. “Growing up, it seemed like every night, every weekend, we were at the parish doing some kind of service, helping somebody move or helping Father Hession with something. … That was our community. Everything revolved around the parish. And you knew a lot of people. All your friends were there. All my parents’ friends were there. And so that was our place.”

Connors said even all these years later, his memories from St. Charles have stuck with him – the good and the bad. It’s unlikely that he’ll forget being “hit over the head with a yardstick” by Sister Lenore on Funny Hat Day during second grade. “I was not paying attention, and I must have been a little too animated, and she whacked me over the head,” Connors said. “It got me to listen, and I’m sure I needed it, but it stuck with me to this day.”

After graduating from St. Charles, and then Snider, Connors worked his way through several of the most prominent universities in the country – first at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He then got a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford. He worked at a “big tech company” in the Bay Area for several years before working at a smaller startup. He lived in Hong Kong for a couple of years, he said, before getting his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Connors took his knowledge and experience and founded Pivot North Capital, a venture capital company whose goal is to fund projects that aim to make the world a better place. One company he’s invested in has helped reduce the maternal mortality rate in Rwanda by 52 percent by programming drones to fly critical medical supplies to hospitals in a fraction of the time a car could deliver the same materials. That company will soon help to alleviate hunger in the United States by delivering affordable food to needy populations. He helped to fund an online bank with no overdraft fees, which affects the poor at a wildly disproportionate rate. The success of this bank has forced major banks to eliminate or drastically reduce their own overdraft fees.

“The great thing about the tech world is you can build a solution that really helps people,” Connors told Today’s Catholic. “And the more you help people, the better your business is, and the better your business model is … the more good you can do in the world.”

Last October, Connors spoke at the Vatican’s conference on the opportunities and challenges AI presents. He’ll share his thoughts during the Servus Omnium Lecture at the University of Saint Francis on March 4.

“We’re going to talk a lot about some of the evil uses of AI, and we’re going to talk about some of the good uses of AI and how to think about those and how to apply these technologies in a way that helps human flourishing versus ways to hurt the world,” Connors said. “I’ve never seen a larger disruption in all of my years in tech than AI. I’m convinced it’s going to absolutely change everything.”

THE SERVUS OMNIUM LECTURE

“AI for the Common Good,” by Tim Connors

When: Tuesday, March 4, 7-9 a.m.

Where: University of Saint Francis, North Campus Gym, 2702 Spring Street, Fort Wayne

Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door

Register: go.sf.edu/servus-omnium