Transformation of Education with AI

Daren Hubbard, VP of Information Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology

Daren Hubbard, VP of Information Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology

How has your journey been in the current role, and what are your core responsibilities?

Before working at Georgia Tech as VP of IT, I served six years as the Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Wayne State University in Detroit. My career started in higher education technology (edtech) with multiple roles in IT and running programs for remote access. I worked at that level as a developer for nearly a decade, leading enterprise applications teams and ascending to the CIO role. During that time, we've had multiple opportunities to work with experts and students at Wayne State on some core issues of higher edtech. It was a critical part of achieving higher graduation rates at Wayne State. At Georgia Tech, we transform business processes, build a deep data utilization foundation, and democratize data to propel numerous business initiatives and goals of the institute's strategic plan. Over the last 20 years, many critical factors have shaped higher edtech. We look forward to innovation and improvement to drive efficiency and effectiveness from an administrative standpoint and significantly impact the student experience.

What are some challenges, and how have you seen the industry evolve?

As things progress, it aligns with where information technology goes and how it impacts our daily lives as consumers. We need clarity between what higher edtech embraces and what individual consumers commonly use. In recent years, I have seen a push to synchronize what happens in the consumer market and what happens on campuses, even though it is a challenge. The concerted effort to reduce such friction for students' experience and the faculty and staff's working experience within an institution will enhance their personal lives. For example, ensuring students will engage with campus services like enabling mobile payments, adoption of using mobile devices for administrative tools, and using their phones as smart keys to get inside halls or buildings. From a staff and faculty perspective, flexible systems allow them to remote work. We continue to grow and thrive in administrative functions from different locations that have been critical coming out of the pandemic.

We're not uniform, but we are investing in that area, which is a nod to being more responsive and adopting technology with its parallels inside the consumer space. During the pandemic, people used Zoom or Microsoft teams to stay in touch. In the post-pandemic phase, we embrace those tools and facilities to employ among our staff members to maintain productivity. The other concern in the adoption curve of technology is cyber security. Every citizen should know and take steps for training to keep themselves safe from cyber threats. From an institutional level, we invest and secure our intellectual property with an effort to grow and maintain immediate access for our students, faculty, and staff.

How do you lead your team and operations cohesively, and what is your leadership strategy?

We strive to work collaboratively and make great partnerships. We are working with different partners on our campus to ensure that we understand their metrics for success. Our guiding principle is to help them achieve success that fulfills their mission and vision by constantly seeking ways to improve and add value. Working with our partners, we understand their business, and our technology can accelerate success—ensuring that the knowledge we create together is highly valued, inspiring enthusiasm and resulting in excellent experiences. We want our organization to have a level of integration and camaraderie that makes a cohesive team structure where everyone feels valued and focuses on working towards something meaningful. As a team, we are committed to recognizing our teammates' contributions and improving our space and the areas we support. By adopting a continuous improvement culture, I invest my time in improving as an individual and a teammate. It involves looking at my daily actions and attempting to improve them. The core of my leadership style and how I show up daily is through partnerships, excellent experience, a great work environment, and continuous improvement.

How will the edtech sector evolve in the coming years?

In the utilization of data, we focus on security and provide flexibility. We will continue to see organizations extensively using data to support decision-making regarding the future direction of their business. In this phase, we offer and deliver data in our community so that our students, faculty, and staff can make better decisions. For example, students may be interested in learning about the success metrics associated with the particular class they are interested in taking. It will enable them to decide whether to take this specific course within their chosen degree path. From a staff perspective, we understand where demand is regarding the need for services. We are leveraging and understanding the data to better position how we interact and engage with our campus constituents. From a faculty perspective, we can understand the deep learning metrics and access to using a learning management system. We help faculties shape the teaching methodology and pedagogy to better impact student outcomes by viewing real-time data about students' learning levels.

What are the future disruptions in the education industry?

Over the next few years, education technology will explode and see more specific and intentional uses. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will fuel the next thing on the cusp. Machine learning and artificial intelligence provide insights for constituents that are more specific and tailored. AI provides insights that can be clear to individual users but also give some context to how that relates to other peers within an environment.

We're seeing a growing demand for data utilization and transparency. We invest in machine learning and AI to augment our data capabilities. There will be heavier use of robotic process automation to optimize how we provide administrative services so that as dollars start to constrict. We'll also spend on organizational support and a little more on teaching and learning to deliver those differences, creating unique experiences and propelling the learning enterprise and research. It's coming together and making them accessible and the investment low enough so that you can see actual returns on it, which will set the tone for at least 5 to 10 years.

EdTech

Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence

Information Technology

Microsoft

Cyber Threats

Robotic Process Automation

Learning Management

Process Automation