Annette Marksberry, Associate Vice President Innovation & Partnerships at University of Cincinnati

What are the top 2 challenges facing IT organizations this year? What are the top 2 opportunities? 

“Across every university here in greater Cincinnati, as well as in our companies, the problem is that we can’t get enough good technology people to come to Cincinnati, or when they’re here, to stay. Between UC, Xavier, Miami and NKU, we graduate a certain number each year, but the need is so much greater. And among those graduates, so many fly away, because it’s exciting to go work in Silicon Valley or to go work up east or on either coast. It’s one of the biggest challenges facing Cincinnati’s IT organizations.

Coupled with that, is the need to change our mindset, to wrap our minds around the fact that technology continues to grow exponentially. It’s getting so fast and so furious that by the time we’re contemplating an idea or asking if we should do something with a technology, you blink and it has become old-school and something else is the new thing. It’s a real challenge to be able to move at that speed, but it’s also an opportunity for schools who are willing to risk getting out there on the edge, to really differentiate themselves. I’m very proud of our UCSIM; our Center for Simulations & Virtual Environments Research lab. We have partnered with Children’s Hospital to prototype a device that will greatly reduce concussions in sports. Our UCSIM students wrote a VR soccer stadium that enables kids to use an Oculus Rift headset to test the device in a safe and effective simulation soccer game.  That kind of exploring all the possibilities and thinking outside the box is exciting and fun!

We also have an IT campaign at UC each fall as students come back to school called IT Happens. Our students created it to help with access to UC’s HelpDesk, our main IT site and to all the information they might need to make life-with-technology easier. The national average for the number of devices students are bringing with them to campus is now at seven. That means that at any one time we are keeping 75,000 wireless devices connected to our network. IT truly is now a foundation in education; in both K-12 and in higher education. It has become a commodity that is expected. In the same way that we expect a light to be on and the temperature to be correct when we walk into a classroom, we now also expect technology to be a part of the experience. The Internet of Things is the next frontier – when our students can check the basement laundry room from their dorm room to know if it’s available, or when a nest thermometer can automatically adjust for temperature at a certain time because it has a student’s class schedule – with data and analytics, it’s all there and available for us to connect to. It’s going to be a fascinating future!”