AI, new technologies, and the courage to fail will dominate IT summit – Harvard Gazette

The relentless pace of technological change and the way Harvard IT employees foster a culture of innovation by embracing both creativity and failure are significant to those in the field and were key themes at the 11th annual IT Summit hosted by the university’s CIO Council on June 6.

More than 1,000 Harvard staff and faculty gathered for panel discussions, networking events, and an afternoon keynote address by Sarah Lewis, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies. The event also featured more than 40 staff-led breakout sessions showcasing a wide range of new technologies being researched and implemented across Harvard departments and disciplines.

The willingness and courage to fail, to be wrong, to pivot, and to engage in dialogue and disagreement will be key to Harvard's continued success in adopting new technologies.

Clara Zhelinkova

Given its near-universal presence in technology discussions over the past year, it's not surprising that generative AI came up frequently. In her opening remarks, Clara Jelinkova, Harvard's vice president and chief information officer, praised the university's IT staff for quickly rising to the occasion and providing the tools and support for community experimentation with generative AI. Citing Lewis' 2015 book, “The Rise,” Jelinkova characterized this era of rapid technology development as one of uncertainty, and said a willingness and courage to fail, to be wrong, to pivot, and to engage in dialogue and disagreement will be key to Harvard's continued success in adopting new technologies.

During the morning panel, technology leaders discussed the balance between innovation and operations, and highlighted how the Harvard CIO Council supports the mission of each department and the university as a whole. Emily Botis, managing director of academic technology at HUIT, said Harvard's IT structure allows innovative uses of technology to be tested in different disciplines before being brought to the center for broader distribution. She gave the example of Teachly, a software tool developed within Harvard that uses data to help faculty teach more inclusively.

Panelists at the summit included (from left) Stu Snydman, HUIT's associate university librarian and managing director of library technology, Beth Clark, CIO of Harvard Business School, Dan Hawkins, CIO of Harvard Divinity School, Emily Bottis, HUIT's managing director of academic technology, and Meena Lakhavani, CIO of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Meena Lakhavani, CIO at the Kennedy School, highlighted the university's AI working group and sandbox environment as an example of central coordination that provides frameworks and tools within which schools can innovate. Beth Clark, CIO at Harvard Business School, mentioned tutorbots, AI chatbots trained to provide students with information about specific classes or course materials, as a way to swap out different teaching styles across IT teams to assess scalability.

Tutorbots was one of many AI-related topics featured in breakout sessions, with presentations on how AI can be used to enhance campus sustainability, workplace productivity, course evaluations, IT service desk support, and many other aspects of higher education. Staff gathered in classrooms on the Cambridge campus to hear updates on new systems such as Harvards Learning Experience Platform (LXP), a platform for delivering asynchronous and blended learning born out of the Future of Teaching and Learning Taskforce's 2022 report, and the new HarvardSites website publishing service. The IT team also shared their expertise with tutorials on a range of topics, including digital accessibility, using design and data to improve user experience, navigating compliance and resource discussions, and exploring open source solutions.

Along with the excitement about AI's potential, its rapid emergence has also raised serious concerns about cybersecurity. In a speculative journey into the future, Michael Tran Duff, the university's chief information security group and data privacy officer, predicted that while we will likely see an increase in cybercriminal activity aided by the use of generative AI, the eventual introduction of AI-enabled vulnerability assessments and personal AI assistants that block social engineering attacks, coupled with cybersecurity measures such as the move to passwordless logins, could lead to a significant reduction in incidents.

To conclude the day's events at Sanders Theatre, Lewis challenged the audience to rethink their definition of failure in their pursuit of innovation. Drawing from themes and research from TheRise, she shared examples of notable innovators throughout history whose progress was hindered by failure. Instead of seeing failure as a negative commentary on yourself, your capabilities, or your identity, you can use it as feedback — valuable information that is part of the solution-finding process.

Lewis also offered advice on how organizations can create safer environments for failure and risk-taking, including creating time and space for employees to experiment and reducing the stigma around seemingly outlandish ideas that may later be hailed as innovations. In response to a question from the audience, Lewis likened failure to a New England winter: “It may feel endless at the time, but just like the seasons change, there's always the chance that spring will come.”

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