In this EDUCAUSE episode, leaders from Maricopa Community Colleges, Dell, and NVIDIA break down what's actually broken in higher ed workforce pipelines — and what applied AI can do to fix it.

Featuring

Jess Evans is the Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer at Maricopa Community Colleges — founding member of the National AI Consortium alongside Miami-Dade and Houston Community Colleges, leading AI strategy across 10 colleges and 185,000+ students with one metric driving everything: student employability.

Adrienne Garber is the Chief Technology and Innovation Strategist at Dell Technologies for Higher Education — covering 17 states with a decade at Columbia University spanning roles as researcher, faculty member, student, and now strategic vendor partner.

Marie Breedlove is a Segment Sales leader at NVIDIA — working across all OEM partners and industries with a front-row view of where agentic AI, physical AI, and robotics are heading and what community colleges can uniquely do with NVIDIA's full-stack platform.

Timestamps

(1:00) Introductions — Maricopa, Dell & NVIDIA live at EDUCAUSE

(2:00) The student who almost skipped Python — and why it matters

(7:00) Students in shelters calling into Zoom — the real digital equity problem

(13:00) People think AI just happened — NVIDIA's 30-year history in higher ed

(17:00) Agentic AI, physical AI, and robotics — what community colleges must prepare for

(24:00) Reducing FUD across 10 colleges — Maricopa's AI Resource Center

(33:00) Under $100 a credit hour, zero debt, job-ready — the community college case

(38:00) Maricopa students running a real SOC for Homeland Security

(40:00) Empathy across the aisle — researcher, vendor, teacher, and student in one person

(45:00) The National AI Consortium February conference — come to Miami

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