Educause 2024 Takeaways

Our Chief Growth Officer, Greg Topel, just returned from this year’s Educause conference in San Antonio Texas where the best and brightest companies and leaders from across the world gathered to share ideas, innovations, challenges, and solutions in the higher education sector. The sold out conference was enlightening and allowed for Mimo to connect with CIOs and various EdTech decision makers around the country. While there, Greg was able to get a pulse on the latest EdTech challenges, opportunities, and trends. Keep reading to learn more about some of his key takeaways:

• AI presents challenges and opportunities in higher ed: The time of AI has clearly arrived for higher education, but so are the many questions and concerns in regards to how to use it properly and responsibly.  AI provides huge learning opportunities and innovative, new ways to enrich everyone’s lives on campus. It can elevate student’s learning experiences while providing a wealth of new tools, access, and information at their fingertips resulting in major increases in efficiencies. But the flip side is that AI also presents some challenges that students, faculty, and staff need to navigate.There are issues of overuse or plagiarism, inaccuracies, or students avoiding learning using AI tools rather than accentuating those experiences. Regardless of what the school of thought is around AI in educational settings, everyone is on the precipice of attempting to navigate and adapt to this new normal that will only continue to proliferate and become more powerful as the years go on. And the heavy use of AI means a consistent and continued effort and need to adapt.
• Cybersecurity is a consistent concern: The average college student is not necessarily overly concerned about cybersecurity, but college administrators  consider it a clear and primary issue for all systems related to IT. Leaders shared some of the latest innovations in cybersecurity, challenges they are navigating, and how campus environments can ensure security is in place for the health of their entire college environment.
• FlashCast resonated with the Educause attendees due to technology’s unique capabilities: Greg was able to introduce FlashCast to higher ed IT leaders, system integrators, and EdTech decision makers around the country. Many of those folks were pleasantly surprised to learn about the product’s unique capabilities to take over every screen on campus (including in every classroom) while disseminating time-sensitive, and customized information. Because FlashCast is the first of its kind and the first to provide the ability to take over every display on campus at scale while also being cost effective, not only is Mimo introducing the product to market, but the entire capability is new to this audience. Once the FlashCast’s capabilities and use cases are truly understood, several attendees expressed clear interest and excited to learn more. Greg walked away from the conference with a better understanding of the high level of interest towards FlashCast, invigorated to continue having conversations with key decision makers in the months ahead.