Digital Innovation Foundry (DIF) Scholarships are awarded to high performing students who demonstrate exceptional achievement and accomplishment. Moa Al Balushi and Abby E Dorotov are the recipients of the Fall 2025 endowed DIF Scholarships.
IBIT News
Rethinking the UX of TU Portal
Temple Information Technology Services (ITS) provides access to a wide range of university resources through TUportal—a centralized hub for the Temple community. ITS has launched an initiative to reimagine TUportal, with a focus on improving accessibility, efficiency, and overall user experience.
DIF Role
In phase 1, DIF reviewed the current state of the Portal and conducted focus group with each stakeholder group to understand their needs and concerns. And in phase 2, reviewed the results from above and suggested a new redesign with help of reviews from students and other stakeholders.
Project Owners
DIF Consultant
MIS student
Fox School of Business
Impact
“Being able to work on the DIF project was a great experience that gave me a better understanding of user-centered/focused design. Having the opportunity to contribute to the redesign of the Temple University portal allowed me to see firsthand how thoughtful UX/UI decisions can significantly improve how students interact with and navigate digital platforms. ” Rhenece Andrew
“Working on the redesign of the TUportal was one of the more rewarding opportunities that I’ve had at Temple. Collaborating with a cross-functional team of students, faculty and administration, we focused on improving the user experience for the Temple community by simplifying navigation, streamlining access to key resources, and ensuring the design reflected real user needs. It was a powerful example of how thoughtful UX design can transform a digital environment into something intuitive, accessible, and genuinely supportive of the student experience. It is terrific to see how the ITS department integrates the needs of the community in their design framework” Amy Lavin
Manoj Chacko managed this project for DIF
IntelePeer’s AI Revolution – Enhancing Benevis LLC’s Patient Call Experience
Benevis LLC, a dental practice management company serving 1.2 million patients annually, partnered with IntelePeer to resolve call center inefficiencies affecting Medicaid patients. Facing high call volumes and extended wait times, Benevis implemented IntelePeer’s SmartAgent AI platform.
An intent study revealed that 61% of calls involved appointments while only 13% required live agents. SmartAgent automated appointment scheduling, rescheduling, and confirmations, allowing human agents to focus on complex cases.
Results included dramatically reduced call center workload, faster service delivery, and hundreds of thousands in operational savings. The AI solution integrated seamlessly with existing systems and provided scalability for future automation. IntelePeer’s conversational AI delivered measurable ROI while enhancing patient experience and maintaining compliance standards.
Click here to read the full summary of the case study!
The case study was led by Neha Mittal and Munir Mandviwalla for the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) at Temple University. The case has been accepted for publication by Ivey Publishing, a leading case publisher in over 136 countries.
5th Annual Fox Case Writing Competition – AI, Analytics & Automation
Submit a case on AI, Analytics & Automation and get recognized with prizes
The Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) in collaboration with the Fox School of Business Translational Research Center invites submissions to the 5th Annual Fox Case Writing Competition – AI, Analytics & Automation.
Suggested topics include:
- Process Optimization – AI-driven efficiency, cost reduction, automation
- Business Challenges – Implementation hurdles, workforce adaptation
- Strategic Impact – Analytics for decision making, AI enabled innovation
- Industry Applications – Use cases in industry (e.g., healthcare, finance, retail)
Prizes of $2,000 for 1st place and $1,500 for 2nd place
To learn more see below and the calendar:
- June 3: Competition Kick-off Event
- June 17: Case Writing Workshop
- June 19: Converting Technical Papers to Cases
- July 28: Case submission portal opens
- September 20: Last day to submit entries
Are you an industry expert? Partner with us to write a case about your accomplishments, we will help you produce and publish teaching and research materials.
For more information contact ibit@temple.edu or Neha Mittal
Sponsors
Fox School of Business | Translational Research Center (TRC)
Center for Ethics, Diversity and Workplace Culture (CEDWC)
Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT)
Ivey Publishing
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute (IEI)
Temple Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER)
Digital leaders McGettigan, Nucci, and Conway honored at 23rd Annual Information Technology Awards
Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) honored three accomplished digital leaders at its 23rd Annual Information Technology Awards on Thursday, May 1st, 2025, in Philadelphia.
The event brought together top technology leaders, innovators, and disruptors for an evening of celebration. The dinner featured remarks by Dean Chip Hunter and award presentation by IBIT board chair Sondra Barbour, followed by a conversation on leadership, innovation, careers, and AI moderated by Munir Mandviwalla. Members of the IBIT community of industry partners, alumni, faculty and students from colleges across Temple University were in attendance.
The evening spotlighted IBIT’s three honorees for 2025.
David McGettigan, Senior Vice President, Pfizer Inc., received the 2025 Information Technology Leader Award. McGettigan is leading Enterprise Platforms and Solutions encompassing three major areas: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Platforms (Cloud Computing, Infrastructure and Operations) as well as Acquisitions, Collaborations, and Divestitures (ACD). This includes our systems that manage ~$60B – $100B in financial and supply transactions annually. David has extensive experience across marketing, finance, manufacturing, and digital platforms for multinational companies, and has successfully led many large-scale transformational, innovative, and business acquisition initiatives.
Rick Nucci, Co-Founder and CEO, Guru, received the 2025 Information Technology Innovator Award. Guru is the enterprise AI search and knowledge platform that delivers trusted information from your company’s scattered docs, apps, and chats the moment you need it – directly in your workflow. Industry leaders like DHL, Shopify, and Spotify are a few of the thousands of companies that use Guru to break down information silos, reduce app overload, and improve efficiency org-wide. Before Guru, Rick was the founder of Boomi, which defined and led a new segment as the industry’s first cloud integration platform-as-a-service. Boomi was acquired by Dell in 2010, where Rick went on to run the Boomi business for Dell, helping grow the organization into the industry leader it is today.
Craig Conway, Chief Technology Officer, Togetherwork, received the 2025 Information Technology Award for Distinguished Alumni. Prior to his role at Togetherwork, he was responsible for operations and customer experience for the Modern Banking platform at FIS. The Modern Banking platform is a 3rd generation cloud-based core banking platform for both retail and commercial banks. FIS is the global leader in financial technologies focusing on banking, capital markets, and payments products and services.
A sub-committee of the IBIT advisory board including Jeff Hamilton (committee chair), Bruce Fadem, Niraj Patel and Sondra Barbour (board chair) identified nominees for the 2025 awards from a list of 69 candidates. These nominations were submitted to and approved by the entire board.
For more about the IT awards and honorees, visit https://ibit.temple.edu/itawards/.
To see the event pictures, click here.
Contact ibit at ibit@temple.edu.
