Sun Hosts Worldwide Education and Research Conference in San Francisco

  • By Campus Technology Staff
  • 02/17/05

More than 600 leaders in education are meeting this week at the fabled Westin Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco as Sun Microsystems hosts its Annual Worldwide Education and Research Conference. Technology visionaries from more than 45 countries -- about 50 percent from within the US and 50 percent international -- will share their best thinking on the intersection of technology and education.

A key theme of the conference is supporting innovation and research, and leaders are discussing how they are moving education forward by building out networks and leveraging advanced technology.

“We as a research university have to teach young people how to be creative, because only if they are creative will they be the next-generation leaders. And the only way to do that is to engage them in research, because that is the creative effort. And technology is the platform by which you create the innovators,” University of California System President Robert Dynes (pictured) told Campus Technology after he addressed the conference on Wednesday.

Among many others speaking at the conference this week are San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom; Her Majesty, Queen Noor of Jordan; Milton Chen, executive director, George Lucas Education Foundation; Peter Cochrane, co-founder, Conceptlabs; Larry Smarr, director of IT, University of California, San Diego; Lyle Oberg, minister of infrastructure and transportation, Province of Alberta, Canada; and Marilyn McMillan, associate provost and CTO, New York University .

Attendees will hear from the following Sun executives: Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO; Greg Papadopoulos, EVP & CTO; John Loiacono, EVP, software; Andy Bechtolsheim, chief architect and Sr. VP, Network Systems Group; David Yen, EVP, Scalable Systems Group; Glenn Edens, Sr. VP and director, Sun Labs; and Kim Jones, VP of global education and research.

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