For the past eight years, DePaul’s Innovation Development (iD) Lab has hosted an annual conference called Optimizing Digital Innovation (ODI), where DePaul students and Technology and Business Executives get together for a day of learning, networking, and sharing best practices on the latest in technology innovation and how that is transforming the business world. Last month under the guidance of Olayele “Yele” Adelakun who oversees the lab, the students led by Aishwarya Nagulavancha organized an outstanding ODI24 event.
DePaul’s iD Lab provides students who are preparing to enter the fields of Software Engineering, Data Science, and UX/UI with a very fertile landscape to engage in solving real business problems as they work with large enterprises. The Lab partners with some of Chicago’s most iconic companies to help with innovative project work, providing students with hands on experience, and enabling companies to advance their innovation initiatives.
Origin was proud to participate in this year’s event as a Gold Sponsor. Some of the other sponsor’s included Abbott Labs, Walgreens, KMPG, Morningstar, Blue Cross Blue Shield of IL, Bosch, and Regal Rexnord.
The theme for this year’s event was ‘Optimizing Digital Innovation for an Intelligent Future.’ The day kicked off with a keynote delivered by Terry Finch, DVP Abbott Labs. Terry gave an inspiring talk on the transformative power of AI and how this technology will significantly enhance the Health and Life Science industry. Terry also shared an overview of the journey his team has gone through so far in identifying AI use cases, moving them to proof of concepts, and ultimately on a path to production.
Origin CEO, Jobin Ephrem followed Terry’s keynote with some of the key learnings we’ve had at Origin in the AI work that we are delivering with Abbott as well as with several other leading Enterprises. Jobin emphasized the following;
1. Data is the Fuel for AI: While a lot of focus is around building robust software solutions, a key to ensuring that you are achieving the results from your AI solution, is having a data strategy and governance in place to ensure you have access to good clean data and the right data sources.
2. Platform Evolution at a Rapid Pace: The platforms, models, and the frameworks that are in use are evolving rapidly and the pace of change with AI is unlike any transformation that we have seen in the past. It is critical that adopters think about experimentation and building solutions with composable and reusable component frameworks in mind.
3. AI will Augment not replace: AI will provide businesses with tremendous opportunity to introduce capabilities that will automate mundane and drab tasks, that will help augment human intelligence giving team members an opportunity to work on more challenging tasks, making them more productive members of the workforce.
This opening session set the stage for some great discussions to follow about how to leverage AI to transform organizations in a sustainable manner.
Paul Haisman, CIO from Rotary International moderated a fantastic panel discussion on ‘Tactical Approach to Maximizing AI opportunities’ with participants from Bosch, Mintel, CCC, and Hatchworks. The group shared their perspectives on some of the common challenges they are faced with and tactical approaches to overcome and implement solutions. This session covered a broad range of topics like evaluation of AI tools, Security and Privacy concerns, and AI policies.
Another late morning panel was on ‘Overcoming Challenges in Enterprise AI’ and featured Colin Boyle from Gallagher, Derrick Higgins from BCBS of IL, Ali Brimah from Northwestern Mutual, and Marc Demoss from Morningstar.
The four executives shared lessons they’ve learned in their personal and organizational journey with AI thus far. Everything from building business cases based on ROI, getting budget approval and executive buy in, and ultimately delivering solutions that drive value to the business and customers.
The afternoon was packed with more great discussion and time for networking, with the day ultimately concluding with a CIO panel, which featured Neal Sample from Walgreens, Tim Dickson from Regal Rexnord, Will Hansman from Upshop, and Satya Pandey from William Blair.
The CIO’s discussed everything from their approaches to experimentation and innovation with respect to AI; growing and building their teams to keep up with the pace of rapid innovation in the technology, and key use cases they’ve successfully deployed delivering business value thus far.
ODI 2024 was a great experience for all involved, and the Origin team is looking forward to participating again in 2025.
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