Transcript for IBM Smarter Planet University Jam podcast interview with Jai Menon and Ravi Nemana.
WILLEFORD:
Hi, I’m Tim Willeford from IBM Communications. Today I’m joined by Jai Menon, vice president of technical strategy and head of IBM”s global university programs, and also by Ravi Nemana, executive director for healthcare and services at CITRIS, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society. Ravi also teaches at UC-Berkeley and received a faculty award for his leading contributions to the 2009 Smarter Planet University Jam. Jai and Ravi, welcome and thanks for joining us today as we discuss the findings of the Jam.
MENON and NEMANA:
Thank you.
WILLEFORD:
So Jai, tell us about the Jam. What is a Jam, and why did IBM target this audience?
MENON:
Yeah, Tim, thanks. Thanks for having me on this podcast. You know, think of a Jam, I think of a Jam as an extended online brainstorming session around a few select topics with enough time given to allow for interesting insights to emerge from this online discussion. You know, we conducted this jam for three days in April and we did it right around Earth Day, which was April the 22nd, with nearly 2,000 students and faculty from 200 universities around the world and in 40 countries. We brought these students together with some top IBM experts, clients and business partners to discuss some of the world’s greatest challenges that we’re facing like the environment, like health care, like building a smarter city and the electric grid. This was a great way for us to draw tomorrow’s leaders into a very serious discussion around these important issues facing our planet. We know that some of the next great ideas for dealing with these problems will come from these leaders of tomorrow and I was really excited to be able to engage with them, and hear their ideas and it was a very powerful experience for all of us that were involved in it, Tim,thanks.
WILLEFORD:
Great. So Jai, what were some of the results of the jam?
MENON:
Well, Tim, what we found was that students are really excited about the future. There was an incredible amount of passion in the postings. Students really care about the world that they live in. They want to be careful when dealing with the environment. They want to build a better world through smarter cities with better transportation systems, using solar powered electricity. They want an electricity grid that is secure, electronic health care records, yes, but they want to make surethat we can preserve the privacy of these health records. They’re challenging those of us in industry to transform their vision into realty and I can say from our side, you know,IBM is committed to meeting that challenge.
WILLEFORD:
Ravi, what was your experience with the jam?
NEMANA:
You know, the Jam was remarkable. I had very interesting experiences on both the professional and the personal side. On the professional side, it was really wonderful to have a broad diversity of opinions inform our research and inform the curriculum in terms of what we decide to teach our students and to really get a feel for what the developments are across the globe and to see how these areas are shaping up. And having these individuals, especially in my field of health care, come from Israel, the UK and China as well as the US and have the experiences of computer scientists and frontline practitioners all come together on one topic was very wonderful. From a more personal standpoint, universities tend to be pretty insular places, and it’s difficult to get that broad diversity of opinion and to help it inform the research agendas of the programs that we put together. And it was really wonderful to have it come to you instead of having to leave the university walls and try to explore for it, so it was really not only a convenience but also a tremendous intellectual experience.
WILLEFORD:
And Ravi, what was the most interesting aspect of the jam to you?
NEMANA:
You know, we had some very interesting discussions around electronic health records and how the advances that are happening in computer science and data mining/tech mining in particular can help preserve privacy, trust and security of health records as we go forward. And what was wonderful, again, was to have that diversity of opinion and have frontline practitioners talk about how the engineering of the service of health care delivery is affected by the decisions that are made and the design of the systems or the design of the technology. It was a really eye opening experience.
WILLEFORD:
And what actions and ideas do you think the students and faculty can take away from the jam?
NEMANA:
You know interestingly we had a couple of students sit with me during a portion of the jam, and what they walked away with was a surprising understanding of how their skills and their Ph.D. programs could help them address the problems of tomorrow. So we had two students who sat with me, they were computer scientists, budding computer scientists, if you will, and they were interested in specific problems in computer science within the Ph.D. programs. But being on the Jam and looking at the health care questions with me, they got an understanding of how their skills could be applied much more broadly and in areas that they had never really considered before. So for them, I think, it was not only a career development exposure but it was also a way to develop the future leaders to see how broadly you can apply these skills and how they can be implemented to design better services.
WILLEFORD:
That’s great to hear. So Jai, were any of the results surprising to you?
MENON:
Well, Tim, you know maybe this should not have been surprising in retrospect, you know, but I was really impressed with the level of optimism that students have. They really feel they can tackle some of the greatest problems of our time. 91% of the students either are already in an environmental club on campus or would like to join one. 90% are very sure or think there’s a reasonable chance we’ll all be driving 100 miles per gallon cars by 2025. And two thirds of them are sure or think there’s a chance we’re going to reverse global CO2 emissions by 2025. Now, these kinds of numbers are far more optimistic than if we were to poll average citizens. And that’s what really impressed me, you know, I feel like our future is in safe hands if people are so optimistic and they have this can-do optimism that I think is what’s really needed for us going forward. So that’s what I found really interesting and surprising.
WILLEFORD:
And in your opinion, Jai, what’s the most interesting insight to come out of the Jam?
MENON:
Well, you know this is the first time we’ve done a jam with the so-called, you know, the 20-something crowd. We know there’s a big opportunity to tap into the passion and ideas that the university community showed. The results really showed that the world is changing. You know, I found fascinating insights in the discussion, for example in education and the future of the universities. I mean, Ravi referred this as well, where students are beginning to see the need for so called T-shaped skills, you know, the combination of their engineering and computer science background with the business aspects. And not only were they seeing the need for these kind of skills, but they actually proposed some fascinating ways to go about getting those skills in a university setting. They proposed project based teams that span geographies, disciplines and even institutions as the best approach to learn about these kinds of interdisciplinary skills. They had other fascinating ideas about student-led learning concepts with faculty as coaches and they saw a large increase in global online classroom opportunities with videoconferencing and so on. Also, you know, I found fascinating in the discussion of smart cities, they had some great insights about how smart cities are not really static but they need to be adaptable and dynamic and how one can use virtual worlds to be able to test out new ideas about a city in a much more cheap way. For example, the importance of having smart evacuation systems as part of a smart city, where you can turn off gas valves and open and shut doors and windows automatically following a disaster. So, fascinating things, that’s just mind opening to me, Tim.
WILLEFORD:
So now that we know students are excited about building a Smarter Planet, and that they have some incredibly innovative ideas on how to get there, how can IBM keep the discussion going and help make these ideas a reality?
MENON:
I think this is really, really important question, Tim. You know, we already have thousands of universities that are part of IBM’s University Programs and Academic Initiative and we strongly believe that students need to have a broad education focusing on both engineering and computer science as well as business and communication skills to become effective leaders in this new economy. We look forward to evolving our initiatives around these Smarter Planet topics that we brainstormed together and we’re planning to roll out a remote project mentoring program, starting in India but then growing globally. And we’re also planning to roll out a Facebook application as a way that will keep IBMers and these students and faculty that jammed with us all connected together as a community, so we’re trying to keep this community and this momentum going forward. And that’s going to be really important, Tim.
WILLEFORD:
Well, that sounds exciting. Jai and Ravi, thank you both for your insights. Our audience can access the full report about the Smarter Planet University Jam at ibm.com/university. This has been Tim Willeford for IBM.