Artificial Intelligence Episodes

Earlier this year I sat down at the inaugural WRITA spring conference with Jeff Scheetz (CIO, City of Avondale) and Zach Duguid (AI Engineering Manager, Polimorphic).


Jeff's answer to what he'd put in front of a room of local government CIOs isn't a success story.


It's the horror stories — the scary stuff nobody puts in the press release.


Most of this episode is the unglamorous work that prevents it. Zach walked through what Polimorphic does before an agent ever answers a resident: a Kn...

What if your wearable could do more than track steps - and actually help detect cardiovascular risk before symptoms appear?

Heart disease is the deadliest disease on the planet. In the U.S. alone it killed close to 300,000 - more than cancer. And it’s a quiet killer: by the time you feel a symptom, the damage is usually already done.

Pengfei Zhou, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing and Information, is trying to catch it earlier - building AI-powered wearables that read your heart continuously instead of waiting for a checkup.

That tracks with something deeper for me: my brother-in-law is a spinal surgeon, and a book called Outlive got him thinking about the “four horsemen” of disease. Heart disease topped the list. He’s been mostly plant-based ever since.

I sat down virtually with Pengfei, Matt de Lima Barbosa (Director of IT, Pitt’s School of Computing and Information), and Adrienne Garber, Chief Technology & Innovation Strategist fo…

In this episode, Craig Woolley from LSU, Lizbeth Johnson from NC A&T, and Ron Ringgold from SentinelOne break down how a student-powered SOC model is scaling across 32+ institutions - and why the hardest part of cybersecurity leadership isn't the technology, it's the people.

In this EDUCAUSE episode, Dr. Vanessa Kenon from UTSA, Tonya Bennett from the University of Pennsylvania, and Tim Boltz from Carahsoft break down how universities are building student workforce pipelines, navigating AI’s legal wild west, and cutting through procurement complexity - all before the pace of change outstrips them.

In this episode, Dave Weil from Ithaca College and Mark Richards from Omnissa explore how a small liberal arts IT team built an AI tool that freed up 150 at-risk student meetings - and why human-to-human connection has to stay at the center of any real AI strategy.

In this EDUCAUSE episode, Josh Bright from UC Santa Barbara, Dwane Sterling from Virginia Tech, and JJ Mahon from Cisco ThousandEyes break down what it means to lead IT before the problems find you - from building a collaborative leadership team to monitoring the student experience before the first ticket ever lands.

In this EDUCAUSE episode, Lester Godsey from Arizona State University, Dan Kent from Cloudflare, and Matthew Leger from IDC break down why most institutions are still in the AI Wild West - and what it actually takes to govern, secure, and scale AI across a campus before agentic systems make the problem exponentially harder.

In this EDUCAUSE episode, Ed Clark from CSU, William Huang from UT System, and Chuck Romero from Palo Alto break down what it actually takes to close the AI divide across 460,000 students — and why browser security is now the front line.

In this EDUCAUSE episode, leaders from Maricopa Community Colleges, Dell, and NVIDIA break down what's actually broken in higher ed workforce pipelines — and what AI workforce development can do to fix it.

In this EDUCAUSE episode, Kyle Bowen from Arizona State University, Joe Sabado from UC Santa Barbara, and Doug Thompson from Tanium make the case that efficiency was never supposed to be the finish line — and break down what responsible AI adoption actually looks like when it connects to the mission.

FEATURING

Dr. LeeBrian Gaskins , Senior Associate Vice President of IT/CIO at University of Houston-Clear Lake


William Huang , Deputy CIO, University of Texas System




KEY POINTS

UT System declared 2024 "the year of the student," serving 256,000 students through leadership-focused programs and AI-enhanced education.


UHCL's 50-year NASA partnership established it as an aerospace education hub, now pioneering 24/7 AI tutoring systems for student success.


Both institutions demonstrat...

Featuring:

Josh Bright, CIO and Associate Vice Chancellor for IT at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB)


Kyle Bowen, Deputy CIO at Arizona State University (ASU)


Charles Elliott, Field CTO for Public Sector at Google




Episode Highlights:
High-Impact AI Strategies

ASU's language learning: German professor developed a custom AI tool that breaks free from "arcane phrases like 'where is the library'" to enable personalized conversational practice that adapts to student interests and provides immedia...

Featuring:

Kendra Ketchum, Vice President for Information Management and Technology and CIO at the University of Texas, San Antonio


Jared Pane, Director of Solutions Architecture at Elastic



Episode Highlights:

Leadership Philosophy & Team Building

Discover Kendra's transformative "humble, hungry, and kind" leadership philosophy that's reshaping technical teams at UTSA


Why Kendra actively avoids hiring "brilliant jerks" who might be technically strong but ultimately damage team cultu...

Featuring:

Timothy Winders, AVP and Deputy CIO at Purdue University


Zach Rossmiller, CIO, University of Montana


Mani Keerthi Nagothu, Americas Field CISO & Associate Director at SentinelOne



In this episode, you’ll learn:

How Purdue navigates the unprecedented challenge of scaling AI access across their university system - balancing million-dollar licensing costs against student equity


Inside the University of Montana's innovative state-wide cybersecurity hub that transforms studen...

Featuring:

Michal Perlstein, Senior Manager of Digital Engagement, City of Seattle IT


Michelle Ringgold, User Experience Team Lead, City of Seattle IT


Dennis McCoy, Product Management Team Supervisor, City of Seattle IT


Jeff Beckstrom, Development Team Manager for Digital Engagement, City of Seattle IT



In this episode, you'll learn:

How Seattle's digital engagement team manages web content, blogs, and newsletters while overseeing digital policies and design requirements


Why use...

Show Notes
Featuring Shauna Rogers, CDO, Texas Attorney General, and Celerino Torres, CISO, Texas Attorney General

🔗 Connect with Shauna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunarogers2/
🔗 Connect with Celerino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/celerino/

🎙 About the episode


A favorite part of this Live Podcast Tour in Houston was bringing on someone unplanned who turned out to be a major contributor to the conversations of the day. It’s the beauty of these more intimate events, having the ability to p...

Featuring:

Aaron Judy, Chief of Innovation and AI at Maricopa County Clerk of the Superior Court



In this episode, you’ll learn:

How Maricopa County's intelligent capture project targets 33% labor reduction in phase one with an additional 40% in phase two


How Cleo, their conversational AI, operates across multiple channels including web, Amazon voice devices, Google devices, text, email, and Facebook


How AI-powered System Reliability Engineering (SRE) helps triage and respond to syste...

In this episode of The Public Sector Show by TechTables, join host Joe Toste as he sits down with Krishna Edathil, Director of Enterprise Solution Services (Cloud/AI) at the State of Texas, and Shauna Rodgers, Chief Digital and Data Officer at the Texas Attorney General’s Office, to dive into their digital deep dive strategies.