Collaboration and Innovation Abound at 5th Annual IT Summit

Nearly 350 campus IT professionals gathered at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union on Thursday, June 7 for the annual One IT Summit. The theme Inspiring Collaboration and Innovation was woven throughout the day’s program and activities. There were also ample opportunities for information technology staff to network, share their work, engage with campus IT leadership, and learn about new technology in the Exhibit Hall and Sponsor Showcase.

Jerry Yerardi, co-sponsor for the event and chair of the One IT Committee, welcomed the crowd assembled in the Pauley Ballroom and introduced Larry Conrad, Associate Vice Chancellor for IT and CIO in preparation for his State of IT Address. In his opening statements, Larry said, “I believe that our ability to collaborate will continue to empower how we find innovative solutions to the growing needs of our campus.” He went on to share several examples of One IT in action, accomplishments over the past year and how different IT groups are working together on these projects to serve the needs of our campus. Many of the projects highlighted are those in direct support of the Reimagining IT Strategic Plan launched at last year’s summit. View the slide deck from Larry’s presentation.

Following Larry’s address, participants had seven different break-out sessions to choose from ReIT Ted-Like Talks to panel discussions, deeper dives into projects like bSecure and the Enrollment Working Group, or they could wander through the Exhibit Hall to see what peers and sponsors had to share. After lunch on the Pauley Terrace, the crowd gathered in the ballroom once again to hear from Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, Paul Alivisatos on the State of the Campus.

Paul was struck by the number of people in the room, “I'm astonished at how many of you there are, but I shouldn't be because if there's one thing we all know it's that information technology has permeated every aspect of our society including our education and research and service that is the backbone of this university. So it makes perfect sense.” He reflected on starting in his role just over a year ago along with Chancellor Christ and shared how wonderful it has been to be a part of her leadership team. “The chancellor has provided a set of initiatives and a sense of spirit of what we can be as an institution as we look into the future five and 10 and 15 years out. She has...overall set five broad goals and the first two are phenomenally important for us at the deepest level possible, those are community and diversity. They really strike at the very heart of what this institution can and should be and its aspiration to be a place that challenges society to be better, to be more innovative, but also to be more inclusive...but really to help our society transform itself in positive ways.” Paul commended the group on how our One IT community is important in this way, so we can avoid having divergent paths and focus our resources together on innovative solutions. He went on to discuss some of the chancellor's other goals and campus initiatives underway including a big push in housing, issues  and creative ideas around the financial sustainability of the campus, emerging undergraduate research and discovery experiences, the growing data science program, changes in graduate education, and more. Watch the full presentation here

UC Davis CIO Viji Murali and Larry Conrad then joined the stage with Paul for a fireside chat facilitated by Rebecca Andersen, I School Director of Career Services. The informal chat was meant to be an open exchange around the summit’s theme starting with three topics: 1) emerging technology and innovation, 2) data integrity and cyber security, 3) community and collaboration. When asked, “What does innovation means to you?” Viji responded, “This is my third time as a CIO and we've gone through tremendous change in the last two decades or so. As I think about innovation, we get confused by the term. We're thinking the small improvements are innovation versus a major change. So to me, what is innovation? The change has to be so good the customer sees the opportunity and uses it. Change for change sake or innovation for innovation's sake is not the answer so we have to keep this in mind." She went on to probe the question of who our customers are, agreeing that this includes faculty and researchers but also students and parents. Access to education and making it easier to get into higher education as well as making it more affordable is something we can do internally to help with this issue and to get more students into the pipeline. See the video from the fireside chat

After a short break, Jerry Yerardi was joined by One IT committee member Bernie Rossi to divvy up all the great raffle prizes provided by our sponsors. Congratulations to all the lucky winners!

The summit concluded with a social networking hour held on the terrace, one more opportunity for members of the community to connect and reflect on the day.