VP/Chief Information Officer Among Experts at State’s Inaugural AI Symposium

VP/Chief Information Officer Among Experts at State's Inaugural AI Symposium

Dr. Bill McCreary, UToledo's chief information and chief technology officer, was among Ohio lawmakers, university presidents and academic leaders as well as industry experts offering knowledge and opinions about artificial intelligence at Ohio's first Artificial Intelligence Symposium earlier this month in Columbus.

Hosted by the Inter-University Council of Ohio in the Atrium of the Ohio Statehouse, the AI Symposium featured keynote speakers Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and Greg Simpson, retired chief technology officer at GE and author of "The Quantum Contingent," and mostly highlighted the promise of AI and large language models.

McCreary was on a panel discussion that focused on "The University-Industry Partnerships Driving Ohio's AI Innovation."

"My panel covered the valuable topic of how partnerships can work to assist our efforts in moving forward with artificial intelligence," McCreary said. "We showed examples how several of the schools were partnering with private organizations to move the needle in artificial intelligence.

"I was able to speak to how we are using partnerships with organizations like Microsoft and Epic to move UToledo forward in artificial intelligence in order to benefit our students, patients, staff and faculty. In this panel we were able to shine a light on how the schools can work together along with private industry to move the needle on artificial intelligence."

The other panelists were Greg Crawford, president of Miami University; Ted Carter, president of Ohio State University; RJ Sargent, executive director of Partner Success + 1819 Learning Lab at the University of Cincinnati; and Rodney Rogers, president of Bowling Green State University, served as the panel's facilitator.

The AI Symposium's other panel discussions covered the impact of artificial intelligence on disinformation, the future workforce, cybersecurity, research in Ohio higher education and Ohio's global competitiveness.

McCreary, who has years of first-hand expertise with artificial intelligence through his career at UToledo and research focused on AI for his Ph.D, was the only chief information officer on any of the Ohio Inter-University Council symposium's six panel discussions.

"We were able to show the great examples of how UToledo has used key technical partnerships to advance our work in AI. The fact that I was the only CIO from the Ohio IUC schools to be on a panel provided further positive exposure for UToledo."