Faculty Development
IT Futures Forum |
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February 29, 2008 |
| Agenda |
8:45am: Welcome - Deborah Boisvert, Director BATEC and Keynote Speech "Think Global, Act Local: Lessons of building a global workforce" - Lukas Ruecker, Vice President of Emerging Markets, Staples, Inc. Lukas Ruecker is Vice President of Emerging Markets at Staples, Inc., the world’s leading office products company. Lukas and his team are responsible for developing, implementing, and supporting aggressive expansion plans in high growth markets across Asia and South America through a mix of JVs, partnerships, and green field developments. Along the way, he helped design country-specific solutions that implement winning combinations of channels, customers, and assortments. Lukas also developed a unique knowledge-centric support model and Staples’ first global management training program to build local capabilities and better leverage Staples’ worldwide expertise. Before his current role, Lukas was responsible for strategy and business building at Staples. He joined Staples from McKinsey & Company, a leading management consulting firm. Lukas holds advanced degrees in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering from MIT. |
Workshop #1: 10:30-11:20 “IP Convergence in Today's Global Company and Industry Best Practices” Today there is a solid business case behind Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Unified Communications (UC). With the technology no longer a matter of hype and questionable return, most companies have made at least some progress toward VoIP/UC and their various levels of investment spans the entire range of the technology deployment. This presentation will highlight a real-time VoIP and UC deployment, emerging technologies, and industry best practices that ensure a secure, high quality end user experience with maximum return on investment. “The Future of Enterprise Resource Planning” For almost 30 years, Oracle has been helping customers manage business systems and information with reliable, secure, and integrated technologies. This session will not only provide an overview of Oracle Corporation, but will explore the future of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with a specific focus on Higher Education, and the strategic emergence of a wide array of core campus ERP systems. Additionally, this presentation will discuss concepts around teaching standards and producing knowledge-based workers for the ever-changing information technology industry. “Going Global Without Losing Your Soul: Identifying, embedding and measuring cultural values to drive success” “Cisco’s Green Story featuring the Cisco TelePresence Use-Case” With the number of people connected to the network set to double and the number of network "connections" per person set to increase five-fold in the next five years, the network is emerging as a key enabler of Green initiatives in the way we live, work, play and learn. Cisco, the world leader in networking and unified communications has deployed its Cisco TelePresence collaboration solution worldwide on a grand scale to transform its business through "in-person" collaboration internally, with customers, with partners, and among suppliers. Cisco is committed to a Green strategy in real estate, product design, data center evolution and collaboration company-wide - in this presentation we'll focus on the dramatic transformational impact Cisco TelePresence has generated at Cisco from an environmental and return-on-investment perspective in just its first year. Workshop #2: 11:30-12:20 “Hybrid Networks for "Optimal" Results: A study of network deployments using leading edge technology” Hybrid COTS networks have been deployed in many locations to provide the "Optimal" solutions both Domestic and International. These technologies along with 802.11x, RFID, MPLS environments, and network security tools are all brought to bear for both our DoD customers and in the daily operation of our corporate networks. Providing the customer, either internal or external, with the "Right" solution for any given deployment requires a great deal of design and must leverage multiple mediums to meet the desired network capabilities in a cost effective manner. There is no "Silver Bullet" but in fact many technologies must be brought to bear. We have deployed combinations of 2.4GHz Microwave, 5.4GHz Licensed and 5.8GHz public frequency RF, C and Ku Band Satellite, Third party wired and wireless ISP's, and traditional land lines to provide our customers with the "Optimal" network solutions that allow for agility, flexibility and stability. There were several unique challenges that had to be overcome to build the necessary infrastructure to support these efforts. Namely, the fact that some of the locations had no connectivity for communication of remote location data was a significant impediment to using traditional communication methods and vendors. This session will cover the designs that have been successfully deployed, lessons learned and a high level review of the technologies involved. “Oracle Academy: Secondary to Post-Secondary Pathways - Working Together for a Seamless Transition” This presentation will focus on the Oracle Academy secondary to post-secondary pathways and how this relationship can create a successful seamless transition for students who desire education beyond high school. This relationship offers students the opportunity to gain high-demand industry IT skills, to leverage those skills while pursuing education beyond high school, and to prepare those students for successful IT industry careers. Aspects of this presentation will include but are not limited to 1) An overview of the Oracle Academy and its relationship with secondary and post-secondary institutions, 2) The relationships that are forged between secondary and post-secondary institutions through articulation agreements encouraging use of Oracle's materials and technologies, and 3) The relationship between cutting edge information technology skills and developing a competitive workforce for the global economy. “Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)” nTAG Interactive is the premier provider of Event Data Management (EDM) solutions for the meetings and event industry. nTAG offers complete solutions to improve, measure and automate meetings and events, on-site and in real time. Built around the world’s first interactive name badge, the nTAG System provides advanced solutions for targeted networking, session interactivity and education, and comprehensive event reporting and ROI analysis. nTAG also automates on-site logistics and provides revenue-generating sponsorship assets. Founded in 2002 by Rick Borovoy and George Eberstadt, and venture capital backed by Sevin Rosen Funds and Pilot House Ventures, nTAG pioneered face-to-face social networking solutions via wearable technology. nTAG ensures that corporate event owners and organizers achieve their event objectives -- business development, education, motivation, market research, customer loyalty, team building, brand promotion, lead generation and more. “From Copper to Fiber Optics: The transformation of a network” The world is moving faster and faster, and technology is driving the pace. As a result, it is critical that telecommunications technology continues to evolve as consumer demand for more advanced products and services increase. Understand how telecommunications providers drive the evolution of technology with a strong network backbone that enables consumers and corporations to stay connected and competitive -- any time from any place. Workshop #3: 1:00-1:50 “Storage Technology Education and the EMC Academic Alliance Program” EMC Corporation, the world leader in information management and data storage, created the EMC Academic Alliance Program to educate students on the fastest growing segment of IT: Storage. The alliance program is a way for CS / IT programs to align with industry and teach students about storage technologies; the new frontier in IT. Corporations are spending significant portions of their IT budget ($60 Billion in 2006) on technologies such as SAN (Storage Area Networks), NAS (Network Attached Storage), Data Replication, Security and Virtualization technologies to solve the problems of storage capacity, data availability, and data mobility. Storage is an important topic on the minds of CIO’s and with this spending come job opportunities and emerging roles in the enterprise IT environment. The new roles are for people who can design and manage an information management infrastructure. Some of these roles include Storage Manager, Storage Administrator, Storage Architect, Back Up and Recovery Administrator and Business Continuance / Disaster Recovery Administrator. Developing the knowledge for these roles is critical and co-dependent upon academia and industry to meet this need. Offering and teaching courses in storage technologies will benefit students and prepare them for the emerging roles of the 21st century. “The Global Dilemma: A startup’s perspective” Startup companies not only deal with the day to day management of growing a small enterprise, but also with the stiff competition from larger companies, whose reach is in the present day, global. With market pressure to outsource in order increase profit and gain valuable reinvestment capital, many start ups make the mistake of outsourcing before they are ready to do so. In this session, CEO Matt Douglas will talk about the growing pains of his start up company Punchbowl Software and the lessons learned in choosing not to outsource any part of a startup company. |
