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IBIT News

Digitally transforming the tracking of pharmaceutical products at AmerisourceBergen

Every day, healthcare solutions leader AmerisourceBergen (a Fortune 10 company) ships pharmaceutical products and treatments to customers such as pharmacies and hospitals. Each shipment leaves from one of the company’s state-of-the-art distribution centers in totes. The totes are durable and designed to be reused — but there was currently no process in place to track what happened to the empty totes after initial use.

AmerisourceBergen leaders asked Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) to investigate the problem. A project team of Temple professors and students took up the challenge at IBIT’s endowed Digital Innovation Foundry (DIF). DIF is a hub for assessing, integrating, and prototyping digital technologies. For six months in 2022, the Temple team reviewed the literature, researched the problem, and prototyped alternate solutions considering both traditional and out-of-box ideas.

Among the millions of shipments daily, the team at Temple thought there could be an opportunity to consider an enhanced tracking methodology. The AB team, led by Pablo Mora and Dharmesh Patel, were open to ideas for improving tracking — but they asked the DIF team to keep in mind cost considerations, reliability, usability, integration with existing systems. In addition, the solution should take into account any change management and the impact it may have on processes for team members.

At DIF, students Russell Abernethy, a computer science major in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, and Eric Wolfe, a junior in the Mechanical Engineering Department, assessed software, wireless technology, and networking. They were guided by two faculty members, Jeremy Shafer, Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems, and Yan Wang, Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Sciences.

Abernethy and Wang researched location sensitive IOT (Internet of Things) devices. Shafer and Wolfe researched platforms to interface with the IOT devices, integrate the IOT generated data, and provide a tracking dashboard. Their proposed digital solution prototype is an innovative mix of Bluetooth IOT tags, and single board tiny low-cost computers integrated into an open-source platform. The team assessed the feasibility of their prototype by turning their world into a simulated supply chain. Abernethy rode his bike around campus with the sensors. Shafer used the family van to drive them around in a cardboard box.

Their final presentation and solution earned praise for its visual and analytics capabilities from AmerisourceBergen during an October presentation at their headquarters in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, which also included AmerisourceBergen team members Dharmesh Patel, Pablo Mora, Venkat Nadimuthu, and Tanmay Bandyopadhyay. Patel, Mora, and Nadimuthu had regularly met with the Temple team to provide a sounding board and feedback since the start of the project.

“Their research and the solution were great,” said Bandyopadhyay. “They thought through the design end to end.” He says his colleagues are keen to explore how to take the idea further. The Temple students are just as optimistic. Wolfe says AmerisourceBergen’s “positive response was very encouraging.” And Abernethy notes that collaboration was key. “Both sides were very willing to share ideas and critiques,” he says.

Through the Digital Innovation Foundry, students and faculty connect to industry to engage in real-world problem-solving, research, and experimentation. IBIT industry partners get access to Temple’s research and expertise.

Bandyopadhyay sees the benefits. “The work was relevant and useful. We are often heads down into our day-to-day operations, and so greatly benefited from a new perspective that our partnership with the Digital Innovation Foundry brought” he says, noting that the DIF team brought fresh perspective to the tote tracking question. “The professors are in touch with the latest and the greatest. The students are smart, and they can produce wonders in short time.”

Learn more about DIF at: https://ibit.temple.edu/DIF

HouseCall VR wins 2023 Digital Innovation Award

The Digital Innovation Foundry is pleased to announce that HouseCall VR is the recipient of the 2023 Digital Innovation Award in partnership with Temple University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute’s (IEI) Be Your Own Boss Bowl Competition.

HouseCall VR will receive $2,500 and mentorship to develop their idea. The Digital Innovation Award is open to all Temple University students, alumni, faculty and staff.

Entries were selected by the DIF team based on the following criteria:

  • Digital – does the idea apply technology in an interesting and/or novel manner?
  • Problem – does the idea solve a real business or societal problem?
  • Practical – is the idea practically doable given current technology, context, and resources?

Spatial strategy in the next generation Internet

IBIT’s Digital Innovation Foundry organized a research workshop on “Next Generation Internet: Metaverses, AR, VR, MR, and Digital Twins” on April 28, 2023, in Philadelphia to investigate use cases, design, and enterprise goals. The workshop, which included a carefully selected mix of accomplished academics and practitioners, generated a nuanced view of immersive spaces that goes beyond headsets to consider spatial strategy.

The participants discussed and debated the following key questions in the context of spatial strategy:

  • How can organizations envision appropriate opportunities?
  • How will organizations source capabilities?
  • How will organizations measure the impact of engagement and experience?
  • What are the implications for current and new business models?

As a result, the workshop generated new ideas and insights on topics such as:

Talent: How will we train entrepreneurs, designers, and programmers to think in more than 2 dimensions and imagine new realities where appropriate? 

Tools: What tools are needed to create content for multidimensional worlds? How will we embed programming inside objects?

Ecosystems and models: Will we need new markets and associated platforms to source objects? What kinds of standards are needed?

Management: What are the appropriate governance mechanisms? What are the sharing and licensing mechanisms?

The workshop followed a highly participative model including short presentations followed by collaborative feedback sessions involving all the participants.

Academic participants included: Simon Cho (Temple), Philip Dames (Temple), Yogesh Dwivedi (Swansea University), Blake Ives (College of Charleston), Sirkka Jarvenpaa (University of Texas, Austin), Munir Mandviwalla (co-chair, Temple), Solon Moreira (Temple), Pavankumar Mulgund (University of Memphis), Ilias Pappas (co-chair, University of Agder), Sofia Papavlasopoulou (Norwegian University of Science & Technology), Matti Rossi (Aalto University), David Schuff (Temple), Ozgur Turetken (Ryerson University), and Yajiong (Lucky) Xue (East Carolina University).  

Industry participants included: Himesh Bhise (LLR Partners), Vince Ford (Curtis Institute of Music), Pablo Mora (AmerisourceBergen), Yehonatan Tamir (Meta), Brian Tebin (Corning, Inc.), Raghushri Sankaran (Scholastic, Inc.), and David Woodson (KPMG).

Thanks to Curtis Institute of Music and Scholastic, Inc. for sponsoring the workshop.

IBIT Scholarships 2023

The Institute for Business and Information Technology announces the 2023 scholarship recipients.

Aashmun Doshi

IBIT AmerisourceBergen Scholarship
Aashmun Doshi

Abdalaziz Sawwan

IBIT Kyndryl Scholarship
Abdalaziz Sawwan

Zhengkun Ye

IBIT Kyndryl Scholarship
Zhengkun Ye

Ethan Chheda

IBIT Meta Scholarship
Ethan Chheda

facebook-meta-logo

David Levit

IBIT Pfizer Scholarship
David Levit

Pfizer

Rachel Koffel

IBIT Scholastic Scholarship
Rachel Koffel

Stewart Family Endowed Scholarship

Mitchel Zilbershteyn

DIF Scholarship
Mitchel Zilbershteyn

Digital Innovation Foundry Scholarship

Russell-Abernethy

DIF Scholarship
Russell Abernethy

Tech leaders Kurshan, Meyers, and Sridharan honored at 21st Annual IT Awards

Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) honored three exceptional technology leaders at its 21st Annual Information Technology Awards.

This premier exclusive event, held Thursday, May 4, 2023, in Philadelphia, brought together an elite group of technology leaders, innovators and disruptors for an engaging evening of discussion about the rapidly changing digital landscape and how we prepare for the road ahead.

The evening spotlighted IBIT’s three honorees for 2023 who shared their expertise and vision with the attendees through keynote presentations.

Dr. Barbara “Bobbi” Kurshan, Board Member of American Public Education, Inc., received the 2023 Information Technology Innovator Award. Dr. Kurshan, co-author of “InnovateHERs – Why Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurial Women Rise to the Top,” has honed her vision of “what can be” using technology while supporting education companies and developing innovative products. She currently serves as a Senior Innovation Advisor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania where she builds and advises education innovation ecosystems and co-directs the global certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Bobbi’s keynote focused on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Synergistic But Not Synonymous.”

Gregory S. Meyers, Chief Technology and Digital Officer at Bristol Myers Squibb, received the 2023 Information Technology Leader Award. As a key leader at one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Meyers is responsible for the company’s digital transformation, the IT function and cybersecurity. He leads the company’s digital health initiative which performs cutting edge R&D using Artificial Intelligence to transform the way patients who suffer from serious diseases are diagnosed, treated and monitored.

Greg’s keynote focused on “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, Tech in the Next 20 Years.”

Karthik K. Sridharan, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, OceanFirst Bank N.A. received the 2023 Information Technology Award for Distinguished Alumni. Prior to his role at OceanFirst Bank, Karthik was the Chief Technology Officer at Citigroup and held leadership roles in global technology management with JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He was also Industry Manager at Microsoft before entering the financial services industry. Karthik is a graduate of Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

Karthik’s keynote focused on “Let’s Apply Digital Disruption to Impact Our Communities.”

“This year’s group of honorees are truly exceptional in their contributions to the IT community, and we are proud to recognize them as digital transformation leaders,” says Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, IBIT’s Executive Director and Professor of MIS at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

For more information about the IT awards and to learn more about the honorees, please visit https://ibit.temple.edu/itawards/. To see the event pictures, click here.

Contact ibit at ibit@temple.edu.

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