I was a first-time attendee at VMworld 2015. While I love trade shows for all their energy and fun, what I love most is that they bring us together to interact with people who use our product. Ultimately, the event provides an opportunity to dig for feedback on how we can do things better for our customers.
After Sunday morning’s fun run across the Golden Gate Bridge with a friendly customer from Belgium, I checked out the venue at the Moscone Center. Um…wow! I’ve been to the largest educational trade shows on the planet, but VMworld rivals the biggest. The masses of people, the backpacks and lanyards everywhere, the conversation about some highly technical bit of the VMware stack between two guys blocks away from the Moscone Center, all of it put me in the mindset I would need Monday afternoon to lead an education panel discussion. But what really got me was the image below.
If you were there, I’m sure you saw it too. It hits me in the gut because in my world, helping students is what gets me up in the morning in excitement, and is at the heart of why I love what I do. Education is one of the few spaces where you can actually say that your technology helps alter the course of the future for someone—at least in some small, meaningful way. It’s so fun to be a part of. This love for education and for helping students attain their potential was the theme of our education panel.
We work with thousands of customers worldwide, and many of them are visionary. We were lucky to have amazingly innovative organizations on stage to address key issues in education: Dr. Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University; Dr. Darryl Adams, superintendent of Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD), Michelle Murphy, CTO of CVUSD; and last but definitely not least was Aaron Colley and Brandon Mahtani from Auburn University’s Office of IT. All are innovation leaders in the space, using our technology to improve learning for students. These organizations aren’t just talking about it but actually doing it, often despite overwhelming odds.
One of the highlights for me was hearing CVUSD explain that 100 percent of their students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Said otherwise, this is one of the poorest school districts in America but because they have a vision, strong leadership, and understand the importance of how technology can level the playing field, they passed a bond to fund a 1 to 1 initiative–when a school district buys a device for every child–with a 67 percent approval rating. But that wasn’t all. They had to figure out how to improve their infrastructure, keep devices safe for kids using AirWatch by VMware, and—this is the REALLY exciting bit—provide internet access to kids not only in school by while they are at home. Their solution to this last problem was equipping buses with solar-powered Wi-Fi and literally parking them in the communities they serve. It worked! What’s most impressive is that the district is the size of Rhode Island, yet they have nearly reached their goal of 100% Wi-Fi coverage for students. Talk about refusing to let hurdles stop you.
I could go on and on, but I have to mention what a privilege it was to have Dr. Paul LeBlanc on the stage also, talking about the changing face of Higher Education. He explained that the average student is no longer a twenty-something heading off to a brick-and-mortar campus, but rather a 30-year-old working parent who is trying to take online courses to improve his or her situation. Horizon Air and vIDM provide a way to reach students who are geographically isolated or socioeconomically marginalized by providing reliable, easy-to-access resources to students regardless of what kind of PC hardware they own. Southern New Hampshire University is leveraging these solutions to be laser-focused on helping people improving their lives and by extension the lives of their whole families—and all this while reducing the cost to deliver education to students. Game changer!
Thanks also to Auburn for sharing some of the security vulnerabilities that lead them to work with both VMware and AirWatch. Auburn is a huge division one institution with a long legacy of, well,…legacy infrastructure. It isn’t easy to turn around such a big ship, and few universities are doing it for that reason. Auburn is blazing a trail for others to follow by methodically managing change and keeping the lights on while moving toward more efficient, secure and nimble technology solutions.
To learn more about how educational institutions are unleashing innovation with IT, visit our VMware EUC Education Solutions page and our AirWatch Mobility Management for Education page.
And finally, a very sincere thanks to all our panelists for treating me and the 200+ attendees at our session to a San Francisco treat (you’re welcome for getting the jingle stuck in your head).
