MPICT 2014 Winter ICT Educators Conference recap

By Mark Dempsey | January 21, 2014

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) kicked off 2014 by attending the Winter ICT Educator Conference in San Francisco. The conference is hosted each January by MPICT, the Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technologies Center. Like the National CTC, MPICT is an ATE Center funded by the National Science Foundation. The event was held at City College of San Francisco’s new multi-story building in the shadow of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid in the heart of the city’s financial district.

In just two days, the 2014 MPICT conference packed in four keynote presentations and over 60 breakout sessions, plus a reception and raffle giveaway. All of the sessions were recorded, so for those who couldn’t attend in person, MPICT will soon be posting links to the videos on their YouTube channel. In the meantime, you can download the conference agenda or program from the MPICT website and if the presentation was archived, its title will link to the screencast recording. If prompted for an organization while logging in and you are not part of a California community college, please select City College of San Francisco.

The National CTC brought to San Francisco a sizable contingent. Some might call it a posse. In addition to four staff members, we also helped pay for travel expenses for IT/convergence faculty from several Convergence College Network (CCN) member schools – Anne Arundel Community College, Century College, Georgia Southern University, Orange Coast College, and Waukesha County Technical College. (Join the CCN and you, too, can apply for travel help attending IT educator conferences like this one.) And that’s not even counting the other members of the National CTC’s extended CCN family who participated in MPICT without our financial help: educators from Diablo Valley College, Ohlone College, and Florida State College at Jacksonville. As the CCN grows, so too does our presence at these kinds of events.

In addition to attending sessions, offering handout materials at an exhibition display, and networking with like-minded IT/convergence educators over coffee or cheese plates, as a co-producer of the conference, the National CTC also provided content. Ann Beheler and Helen Sullivan led two breakout sessions with an able assist from Orange Coast’s Bill Saichek, one on the value of letting business leaders steer your program (what we call a “BILT” – a Business and Industry Leadership Team) and the other on the benefits of joining the CCN. The National CTC also helped arrange the involvement of one of the four keynote speakers: Charlie Bess, a futurist with HP. You can learn more about Charlie at his blog.

And now, some photos from the conference, and San Francisco – if you have the opportunity to attend this conference in the future, do it.

MPICT Conference Photos

Keynote: The Educational Path to a Successful IT Career
John Estes, Director of Training, Technology Staffing Services, Robert Half Technologies

Keynote: Harnessing Grit: Community College Students’ Competitive Advantage
Jay Banfield, Founding Executive Director, Year Up – Bay Area

Business Engagement: Key Component in Launching New Programs
Ann Beheler, Principal Investigator, Convergence Technology Center, Frisco, TX

Bridging the (Hands-on Cybersecurity Technical Skills) Gap Between Graduates and Industry: Best Practice with Proven Results
Israel O Aladejebi, Director, Cybersecurity,Virtualization and Forensics, Century College, White Bear Lake, MN

Keynote: MegaTrends and the World of 2020: At the Intersection of Business and Technical Trends.
Charles Bess, HP Fellow, HP Application Business Services Americas Chief Tech

Faculty Networking Improves Skills and Builds Programs
Ann Beheler, Principal Investigator, Convergence Technology Center, Frisco, TX
Bill Saichek, Professor, Orange Coast CC