Sunday 2 March 2014

OTN Yathra 2014 - Last Stop Chennai


The final event of the tour and 3rd university was at  Loyola-ICAM College of Engineering and Technology (LICET).

This is a Jesuit Education and the day started with an act of worship, I am a Christian but have been on the road for a month, and to share with them in this was very humbling .

The welcome along with the lighting ceremony we first saw in Noida started “Welcome to those who will take us on a journey to Oracle Technology Knowledge, to a world of awesomeness” – what a welcome, what a privilege.
 
Keynotes from the various Deans was teaching for us presenters, and very motivating, talking about the value of knowledge stating:

 
Data becomes information when it is organised.

Information becomes knowledge when it is placed in actionable context.

Without context information is of little value.

Based on the Jesuit Ignatian Pedagogy originating in 1540 the college believes that Knowledge Sharing is about Content, experience, reflection, action, evaluation & enriched experience

They talked further about how knowledge sharing happens and how it works best when those receiving knowledge, have an interest that the topic, a need for information and research is based on this and then disseminated back to the community, this is known as the Social Interaction Model, which is how OTN, User Groups and especially the ACE program works.

 
They showed a video from Microsoft a concept of 2019 – A glimpse ahead– looking at exponential growth in technology very interesting and I am glad to see the working day still resolves around coffee.

The college also shared a video about their experimental learning, they took a car and removed all the covers, so all is exposed to students to learn from. This is what I try to do with Fusion Applications, take it apart and build it up. After the keynotes I was on first and missed the opportunity to go out and try the car, but Tim Hall did and he will post the video on his blog.

My first session was my BI & EPM in Fusion Apps, and I had a very large and student based audience, I was able to peel it back to the development strategy and the original acquisitions of Siebel and Hyperion where the BI & EPM products originated. Thank you to Facebook who acquired Whatsapp just before the start of this tour; at every event I was able to talk about that and explain the motivation for acquisitions, and how the acquirers can combine with their own technology, and grow them.

After lunch I asked if I could walk around the grounds and I was given an escort Prabhu Shankar who is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering; the university is about 70 years old and was built around a Jesuit Church. It is a beautiful campus and students must love to learn here. I ended the tour with a visit to one of the engineering labs where like with the car they were dismantling a tuktuk taxi to see how it works. I took the opportunity for a photo call as this is the only time I would ever have the courage to get in one.

I then had the final session of the day on Mobile Design Patterns, again something everyone can relate to even if you have never heard of Oracle. I concentrated on the science of User Experience and how they got to the design patterns and how they are relevant to all technologies.
 
After the event we meet not only with the Dean and his team but also with the Parents representative. This was a great discussion about teaching the principles of technology and not just the core syllabus and how AIOUG may play a small part in this.
 
Definitely a high to finish the tour with.


 

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