IBIT News

IBIT announces new web site

The Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) is pleased to announce its new site at http://ibit.temple.edu. The site has been redesigned from the ground-up to better serve all the IBIT stakeholders – corporate members, faculty, and students. The site which is based on the WordPress platform provides extensive content management and social media features. Specific highlights include:

Comprehensive and easy to navigate access to all current and previous IBIT programs including the IT awards, Fox IT symposium, and The IBIT Report.
A new executive education site that will provide participants with collaborative and social media enabled access to all program materials
A special area to feature IBIT members.

Eleventh Annual IT Awards

The Eleventh Annual Fox IT Awards were held on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 and featured the Fox IT leader Award for Joseph C. Spagnoletti, Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Campbell Soup Company, the Fox IT Innovator Award for Kurt Holstein, Vice Chairman, Co-Founder, Rosetta, and the Fox IT Award for Distinguished Alumni for John H. Shain, President, Chief Operating Officer, Automated Financial Systems, Inc. LLP.

The event also featured awards for students, faculty, and staff:

STUDENT LEADERSHIP AWARD Brian Connelly, BBA MIS, January 2012	ADMINISTRATIVE LEADERSHIP AWARD Rachel Tomlinson, Director
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Xiufen Chen, BBA MIS, January 2011 Ashneet S. Gujral, BBA MIS, May 2011	IT LEADERS SCHOLARSHIP Aaron Bacchi, BBA MIS, May 2012
RESEARCHER OF THE YEAR AWARD Youngjin Yoo, Associate Professor	TEACHER OF THE YEAR AWARD David Schuff, Associate Professor
FACULTY LEADERSHIP AWARD Steven Johnson, Assistant Professor	ADMINISTRATIVE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Manoj Chacko, Technology Coordinator
ASSOCIATION FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS Outstanding Officer: Ashneet Gujral, BBA MIS Outstanding Member: James Tang, BBA MIS

PICTURE SLIDESHOW
(download high resolution images)

2011 IT Awards

CIO 2.0: Next generation of insights on digital business strategy

April 08, 2011

The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology in collaboration with the Special Issue on Digital Business Strategy of Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ) presents the Fox IT symposium: CIO 2.0: Next generation of insights on digital business strategy.

The symposium will integrate different points of views on how IT shapes and influences business strategy. As exponential advances in the price/performance of computing, storage, bandwidth, and software applications drive the next generation of digital technologies, it is time to rethink the role of IT strategy, from functional-level strategy aligned, but subordinate to business strategy, to a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy termed digital business strategy. The symposium will discuss how next-generation CIOs can take advantage of their deep knowledge of digital technology to take a leadership role in their firm’s formulation of business strategy.

Panelists

Andrea Anania, Retired, VP and CIO, CIGNA
Richard Cohen, Managing Director Principal, Deloitte
Bruce Fadem, Retired, VP and CIO, Wyeth
Jim Accardi, CIO, Education, Aramark
Edward Quinn, VP – Application Development, Hewlett-Packard

Moderator

Paul A. Pavlou, Associate Professor, Temple University

Niraj Patel appointed 2011 Executive-in-Residence

Niraj Patel, BBA ’90, President, ISGN, Partner, Witmer LLC, and Managing Director, Musser Consulting Group has been appointed “Executive in Residence” at the Fox School’s Management Information Systems (MIS) department and the Institute for Business and Information Technology for the 2011 year.

Mr. Patel was selected as Executive in Residence because of his stature in the field and his continued support for the Fox School. As part of the appointment, Mr. Patel will be spending several days through the year interacting with Fox School MIS students and faculty. Patel will be visiting Fox in March 2011 to start the program. “We are fortunate to have Niraj Patel, one of our most successful, entrepreneurial, and innovative alums as our Executive in Residence” said Munir Mandviwalla, associate professor and chair of the management information systems department at the Fox School of Business.

“As a proud Temple alum, I am very much looking forward to engaging with Fox School MIS faculty and students” Patel said. “The MIS faculty and students at Temple have an entrepreneurial spirit and focus on innovation that is closely aligned with my interests.”

Biography

Niraj Patel
President, ISGN
Partner, Witmer LLC and Managing Director, Musser Consulting Group

Niraj Patel is a senior business executive with a successful track record of uncovering a corporation’s hidden value and opportunities to create long-term strategic and innovative solutions to increase profitability and performance. His plans have included strategies to address organic growth, in-organic growth through acquisitions, investments, technology solutions and exit strategies. Patel has a passion for distinguishing where possibility does or does not exist in a business endeavor. His business expertise represents the culmination of 15 years focusing on growth strategies through innovation. His business acumen coupled with utilizing some of the most forward thinking business minds, enables him to assist international organizations with value innovation, calculated risk and exponential growth.

Patel currently serves as President of ISGN, a Partner of Witmer LLC and Managing Director for the Musser Consulting Group. As a multi-national/cross border expert, he has a strong client base in India and has completed large scale projects bridging nations. Patel works closely with his diverse clients including single product firms, medium size firms targeting rapid growth and international conglomerates. It’s their potential that drives Patel to engage their leaders to conceptualize and generate innovative ideas, analyze business strategies, and develop effective solutions, processes and procedures to produce streamlined profitable operations. His approach assists organizations accelerate growth and realize their fullest potential.

Patel is one of the founders of ISGN. ISGN has grown from 100 employees to 1,800 worldwide and customer base has increased to over 1,100. Previously Patel served as a founding member and Executive Vice President/CIO for GMAC Commercial Mortgage. As a member of the Executive Committee, he was a key contributor to the organization’s international growth by consistently delivering double-digit net income growth reaching as high as $341.6 million annually, increasing loan originations from $2 to $29.9 billion, building loan servicing from $5 to $276 billion.

Recognized as an award winning innovator and viewed as one of the leading technologists of his generation, Patel serves on numerous boards and panels, speaks at industry conferences and has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal and numerous commercial real estate, finance and technology publications. Patel’s community and professional memberships have included the Microsoft Executive Circle; Eastern Technology Council; the Board of Advisors of the Management Information Systems department at the Temple University Fox School of Business; the NPower CIO Advisory Council. and His executive board experience includes: the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) Board of Directors, EnableUS and MortgageRamp.

He has a BBA in Finance and MIS from Temple University and resides in suburban Philadelphia with his family.

About the Fox School’s Management Information Systems (MIS) department and Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT)

The Fox School’s MIS department offers undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs in information systems and includes more than 600 majors and minors and 12 faculty members. Ranked number 1 in the world for research in 2010 by the Association for Information Systems, and in the top 10 by The Chronicle of Higher Education and TechRepublic in 2008/2009, the MIS department is one of the youngest and most successful IT oriented departments in the U.S. The associated Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) connects students and faculty with industry leaders through a membership structure, and provides project and professional development opportunities. For more information, visit community.mis.temple.edu or ibit.temple.edu

Center for Design and Innovation hosts DESIGNweek 2011 and inciteXchange

The Center for Design and Innovation hosted THE DESIGNweek challenge – North Broadband on March 14-17, 2011. DESIGNWeek is an annual student competition to transform ideas into actions. The Challenge brings together students from across the University to collaborate across disciplinary lines to create innovative solutions to address some of today’s most challenging urban issues. The Center also hosted the inaugural inciteXchange workshop on March 18, 2011.