SAIT Software Development Virtual Symposium Schedule (View Recording)
Monday April 1, 2019 – 1pm-3pm EDT
All times listed in the Eastern Time zone. Please note that presentation starting times may change.
1:00 – 1:05
Introductory Remarks
1:05 – 1:20
Assessing Co-Curricular Activities via Customized Attendance-Tracking Software
- Steve DiDomenico – Northwestern University
1:20 – 1:30
Preparing for the First Year: The New Student Checklist
- Steve DiDomenico – Northwestern University
1:35 – 1:50
Auditing Data with Pentaho and FDA
- Vivi Matthews – Northwestern University
1:55 – 2:10
Building a Web-Based Asset Management System with Ruby on Rails – 100% Student-Built & Maintained!
- Paul Schantz – California State University, Northridge
- Benjamin Plotkin – California State University, Northridge
2:15 – 2:30
Student Affairs and Emerging Technologies (Open Discussion)
- Dara Foias – Arizona State University
2:35 – 2:50
Smart technologies such as AI and IoT enabled Smart Campus platforms and services can transform student engagement, mental health and wellbeing, productivity and retention of this generation of students.
- Sabina Saksena – Cytilife
(time permitting):
Student Engagement: how do you build it and measure it (Open Discussion)
- Dara Foias – Arizona State University
(time permitting)
Automated Deployments with Jenkins Pipelines, Github, and Maven
- Steve DiDomenico – Northwestern University
2:55-3:00
Closing Remarks
Bios
Steve DiDomenico
Steve works on a variety of different projects in the areas of health services, student engagement, co-curricular student groups, and new student preparation in the Student Affairs IT department as a Senior Software Developer at Northwestern University. He has worked in a variety of technology roles and projects at Northwestern for 19 years, including implementing the library’s first digital repository system, maintaining library catalog and discovery systems, and helping coordinate collaborative open source projects with other universities.
Dara Foias
Dara Foias serves as the Chief Technology Officer, Student Services for the Educational Outreach and Student Services (EOSS) department at Arizona State University. In this role, she oversees a small, diverse group, undertaking web Drupal development, project management, systems and business analysis, and other technology services. Her team collaborates closely with the central enterprise technology department for custom development and system integrations.
Viviana Matthews
Viviana has been at Northwestern since August 2016. She graduated from Universidad Austral de Chile with a Masters in Software Engineering. She then worked at a Telecommunications company in southern Chile for about 9 years in many different areas of IT and product development and, in July 2005, moved to Chicago with her family. Viviana worked at Illinois Tech for almost 10 years working on applications development and system administration.
Benjamin Plotkin
As Technical Project Manager for the Student Affairs IT department at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), Benjamin oversees the day-to-day efforts of the department’s software development team, providing guidance and mentoring to the team’s student employees and managing external contractors. With over 20 years of experience leading technology teams in private industry, Benjamin brings a unique perspective to the technological opportunities and challenges of higher education.
Sabina Saksena
Sabina has over 25 years of global business, product and services management leadership experience in Corporate America with companies such as The Coca Cola Company, Price WaterHouse Coopers, GSI US, The Tata Group etc. She has broad based background in launching and managing products and services using technologies such as RFID, IoT, Data Synchronization, Big Data, ML/AI, eccommerce etc. She has also spoken and presented at various forums on Smart Cities and Smart Campuses. She founded Cytilife, A Smart Campus company that built its Smart Campus platform leveraging, IoT/ML/Smart phones in 2015 which is working with several colleges such as Georgia Tech, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke etc.
Paul Schantz
As Director of Web & Technology Services for the division of Student Affairs at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), Paul leads the effort to deliver user friendly student-centric online services. Paul’s team works with campus partners to conceive, develop, build and maintain software that improves the efficiency and usability of student services at CSUN and beyond. One of Paul’s primary responsibilities is to provide unbiased professional consultation and guidance to senior campus leadership on assessing and making the best use of current and future technologies to improve the online student experience. Paul’s goal within higher education is to encourage institutional adoption of modern web-based technologies, while providing an environment for students to be a part of developing useful technology solutions.