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A conversation with Ken Russell [The Wichita Eagle](Wichita Eagle (KS) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 26--Ken Russell has seen enough technology to know that it's not only what you know, but also about how well you learn. He is the new executive director of Wichita State University's Applied Technology Acceleration Institute, a creation of president John Bardo and vice president John Tomblin as part of their plans to boost the university's economic development effort. They recruited him to create the institute -- located between the campus' College of Engineering and the National Institute for Aviation Research -- as a connection between the university, its research faculty and students, and corporate partners who are interested in funding labs to expand their research capability and train future employees. It's more or less an attempt to do with information technology what the university has done in aircraft manufacturing at NIAR. The institute already has contracts with the Federal Aviation Administration, Silicon Valley-based NetApp and Spirit AeroSystems. It announced a contract last week with ANSWR, a search-engine company based in Boston. Russell, 50, has had more than half a dozen jobs in his career, most recently with computer networking company Cisco. He has come to understand the big picture about how technology works. He just finished a book, "Social Knowledge," which will be released Oct. 1. He is married to Ann and they have two children. Although he has traveled extensively, he has generally lived in Charlotte, N.C., his whole career. With their youngest child now off college in North Carolina, he and his wife have moved to Wichita. Why did you leave your job at Cisco to come to Wichita? Things were going well. The book was cooking. I just happened to have a conversation with Dr. Bardo ... We really got together because a common friend said you guys need to chat. We exchanged a few e-mails and he mentioned the Innovation Campus idea and would I talk to some of his team ... I said "Sure, whatever you want." I ended up having a conversation at the end of December with John Tomblin. We had a really great conversation. It was supposed to be five minutes, but it turned out to be like an hour ... It was over Christmas and Cisco was shut down and I had a chance to really talk. It showed that we had a similar vision, similar ideas. It wasn't about the technology, it was about the impact of technology and making an opportunity for students to compete. So what is the Applied Technology Acceleration Institute? It has a few specific words in there that are significant, 'applied technology' -- which tells the world that we are ready to roll our sleeves up together with our industry partners to solve real world problems -- and "acceleration" ... which is helping our students and our partners move more quickly. What else is different? What is new is that it's not just technology students, it's not just folks from computer science, not just students in mechanical and electrical engineering. It's folks from across the campus, and that's what I'm really excited about. And that is one of the reasons that, when we were trying to set up our centers of innovation, I wanted to have enough flexibility and variety of opportunities. What are the centers of innovation? The first center is called the Center for Applied Research and Technology Consumption, and that is where most of our work with NetApp is, in applied research and technology and this idea of consumption. Phones are a great example. If we were more of a classical research environment, we would be focused on the technology -- what makes the LG or the iPhone work. What little chip is in here, what resister is in here, what battery is in here? Sure enough, you can still get that within your course of study. But at the institute, we're more focused on the impact of these devices, how we consume the technology. That's a big difference. What other centers? Our lives have been forever changed in the past five or six years by this thing I call social knowledge. And that is the name of the second center, the Center for Social Knowledge. We used to look in The Eagle for the movie times at the Warren. Now you've put it online. But you've got something else, as well, links to other reviews, and that's something you don't normally think about. Instead of just looking at the movie times, you're looking at Rotten Tomatoes or whatever and people who give the movie a 73 percent or a 46 percent rating. That's crowdsourcing. When people leave reviews and notes, they're operating collaboratively. That is social knowledge. That's having an impact on our every day lives. Now, when we might go to a movie based on a review of somebody we don't even know. It's not Siskel and Ebert anymore; it's the guy down the street. We want our students to be part of that wave. The third center is Center for Dynamic Data Analysis. What is that? If I said "the Center for Data Analysis," you'd be snoring right now. But that word "dynamic" is the word I'm focusing on ... So if you are looking at all the problems in dealing with cybersecurity ... the root of those are our trying to solve cybersecurity problems with data analysis approaches from at least 30 or 40 years ago. ...You can also use dynamic data to isolate issues on telephone lines along 1,000 miles and see where the trouble is, or a pipeline, or what's happening in a large corn field using sensors. One interesting statistic: On the planet right now, there are 12 billion intelligent devices, such as cellphones and connected sensors. The research that Cisco has done suggests that the world will have about 50 billion by 2020. Think about that change, 12 to 13 billion to 50 billion. That's not more phones; it will go into our appliances, our cars, the Internet of Things. Window glass -- we might not even need shades any more because it will detect the amount of UV we've set to come into that window and dim based on that. Today's freshmen, graduating in 2018 could be really set up in new careers in computer collaboration technology or data science. The whole world of data science will change in the next few years and I want us to be part of that. What is the fourth center? I finally wanted to link us to other things going on, so the last one is called the Center of Innovation for Commercialization and Inventor Collaboration. I'm excited about that one because it allows us to be part of this history that Wichita has of inventing new stuff whether that new stuff is for a new airplane or whether a new restaurant or a new entrepreneurial venture. It's about commercializing a good idea. I want to make sure we can use our links to the world, particularly Silicon Valley and Boston, and bring those areas closer to Wichita. So we might have a student work with a (venture capitalist) in Boston or on some new technology cooking in Silicon Valley. Or maybe it's helping a 15-year-old high school student who wants to build a new app find out how do you actually commercialize that. The same is true of the 55-year-old airplane mechanic who has been tinkering in his backyard: How do you actually get that from the garage to the world? What do these centers have in common? I realize they are kind of varied, but that's the intent. We want to make sure the students leave here with varied and flexible options because we want to create lifelong learners here at WSU. The idea that you can study and be an accountant for 40 years is just not really 21st century. You have to make sure we have students who learn to learn. Reach Dan Voorhis at 316-268-6577 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @danvoorhis. ___ (c)2014 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.) Visit The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.) at www.kansas.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |