Campus Innovation Day Sparks Collaboration

October 17, 2016, @ 8:00 AM

On Thursday, October 6, LVAIC campuses participated in Campus Innovation Day at Lehigh University. This event focused on several topics of interest and featured keynote speaker Florence Hudson, Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer of Internet2, an advanced technology community founded by the nation’s leading higher education institutions. The purpose of the gathering was to explore areas of collaborative innovation in technology and research with colleagues from Lehigh University, LVAIC institutions, Internet2, and KINBER.

A highlight of the day was a deeper dive into Lehigh University’s Data X Initiative. Dan Lopresti, Professor and Chair of Computer Science and Engineering and Director of Data X at Lehigh University, offered a tour of Building C on the Mountaintop Campus, former home of the Bethlehem Steel Homer Research Laboratories.

The desired outcomes for the day were for attendees to gain new information about topics presented, expand their network and formulate new innovative ideas around the topics discussed, and gain valuable information, insight, and connections to push their work forward. “The collaborative key of this endeavor was connecting colleagues across campuses. Over seventy-five percent of the attendees were from member campuses beyond Lehigh University, and this connection would not have been possible without the coordination and cooperation of the LVAIC campuses,” explained Amber Fogelman, LVAIC Strategic Collaboration and Sourcing Director.

Groups engaged in round table discussions regarding cross-campus collaborative courses, women in information technology, innovation with TIPPSS (trust, identity, privacy, protection, security, and safety), smart campuses and the Internet of Things, and research, science, innovation, and Internet2. Four of the LVAIC member campuses sent twenty-three participants to this workshop to join in the roundtable talks and advance discussions on these pertinent topics. Associate members from Lehigh Carbon Community College and Northampton Community College attended as well.

Beyond the connection with other members of the LVAIC community, the most valuable piece of the experience was meeting Florence Hudson, explained Farah Vallera, LVAIC Instructional Designer. “Florence’s expertise, her perspective, and her diverse experiences were the most meaningful and inspiring parts of the workshop.” Vallera went on to explain that the attendees were a group genuinely interested in collaboration and that events like these are where collaborative initiatives spark into action. “The event was focused on initiatives LVAIC is already pursuing with information security and cross-campus collaborative courses.” Structuring programs around these initiatives allowed Campus Innovation Day to further the priorities of multiple member institutions.