#200: UCSB's Data-Driven AI Pilots + ASU's Multi-LLM Innovation Platform + Google's Higher Ed Partnerships [EDUCAUSE 2024]

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Featuring:

Josh Bright, CIO and Associate Vice Chancellor for IT at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB)

Kyle Bowen, Deputy CIO at Arizona State University (ASU)

Charles Elliott, Field CTO for Public Sector at Google

What You’ll Learn:

High-Impact AI Strategies

ASU's language learning: German professor developed a custom AI tool that breaks free from "arcane phrases like 'where is the library'" to enable personalized conversational practice that adapts to student interests and provides immediate feedback

UCSB's data-driven approach: Five strategic AI pilots generating concrete metrics to inform new leadership's investment decisions during chancellor transition, ensuring continuity of innovation

Google Cloud's Rapid Innovation Team delivers accelerated proof-of-concepts through enhanced user story collaboration, allowing universities to quickly transform ideas into working prototypes

Technology Infrastructure Innovations

ASU's "Create AI Platform" unifies multiple LLMs into a single environment where faculty, researchers and students can rapidly prototype solutions to real-world problems, creating an agile development ecosystem

Google's migration of Collaboratory to cloud infrastructure gives educational institutions both seamless collaboration features and enterprise-scale computing power for complex research workloads

UCSB's partnership with Goldstein yielded comprehensive consensus from 200+ stakeholders including 70+ faculty members, creating what Josh calls "a fantastic engagement" leading to unified campus IT direction

Transformative Leadership & Organizational Development

UCSB's immersive five-day on-site "conference" reconnected hybrid workers with campus mission after 5-year absence for some staff, yielding emotional breakthrough: "We didn't know we needed this"

UCSB's year-long MOR Associates Leadership Program builds shared language among senior IT leaders while requiring all central IT staff to achieve Yellow Belt certification in Lean Six Sigma

ASU's competitive AI Innovation Challenge framework creates structured experimentation that simultaneously explores possibilities and identifies governance issues: "It helps us put in place the kind of guidelines or processes to help mitigate them in the future"

Cross-Institutional Partnership Models

Google Cloud's advanced multimodal capabilities enable universities to process diverse inputs—"video, audio, geometry assignments, you name it"—creating richer educational experiences for students

ASU's operational success applying AI to incident communications demonstrates how technical teams can "translate and help communicate about what's happening in technology environments to provide better messaging, faster"

UCSB's campus-wide mentorship program connects IT professionals across organizational boundaries, currently in its second cohort and delivering "really fantastic outcomes, just helping people to see, partner with those who are a little further along the road"

Timestamps

(01:15) ASU's three-pillar AI strategy: Education/Community, Technology, Experimentation

(02:00) Real-world AI applications at ASU: German language learning and incident response

(03:00) UCSB's campus IT strategy development with 200+ stakeholders

(06:00) UCSB's Enterprise AI pilots for gathering implementation data

(08:00) Leadership development initiatives at UCSB

(12:30) ASU's AI Innovation Challenge framework

(15:00) UCSB's transformative five-day on-site experience for remote staff

(18:00) Leadership advice for technology leaders in Higher Ed

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