Using Tech for Accessible Education: Michelle Lee on CTO Confessions
CTO Confessions podcast by IT Labs just sat down with ITHAKA CTO Michelle Lee to talk about what it’s like to lead at a mission-driven nonprofit like ITHAKA, where technology is used to make education more accessible. Host T. C. Gill, IT Labs’ “Chief Talking Officer” covered everything from how Lee’s passion for learning drives her, to the guidance she gives others to “be bold,” to her excitement about the latest technologies like generative AI.
We provide a few quotes here from their wide-ranging discussion. You can find the full conversation on CTO Confessions Podcast Episode 139.
Technology Leadership Requires More Than Tech Skills
Lee has worked in a number of industries in engineering and technology, including geospatial positioning satellites, healthcare, and higher education. “No matter where I go, I use my technology skills to solve business problems,” Lee told Gill of IT Labs. Most recently before her role at ITHAKA, Lee was VP of engineering in Bloomberg Industry Group, responsible for developing multiple customer-facing product lines in tax, government contracts, and government affairs.
“My daughter asked, ‘Mom, what does curing cancer have in common with satellites?’ I told her whether it’s [working with] patients or a satellite image, it’s all zeros and ones, all data to help people solve problems in different industries.”
Gill asked what problem ITHAKA is working to solve.
“The problems we’re solving in this market are that the higher education institutions are under immense pressure, particularly in the United States. They must find affordable ways to improve the quality of education and teaching, and to do this they need to switch some services from local services and activities to the virtual world. These institutions need to find ways to attract students and help them succeed. They want to work on these challenges and invest in organizations like ITHAKA that share their values and can help them succeed. What we do is closely related to my passion, which is learning and education. Imagine a world where people of all ages and walks of life have access to similar knowledge resources and can gain new insight and skills where everyone who wants an education is able to access and complete their degrees.”
ITHAKA helps higher education institutions, libraries, publishers, and other partners to do this and do it affordably. “We have come a long way in two decades, but we have a long way to go,” Lee explained.
Fulfilling the Vision for Accessible Education
Gill: “What do you have on your roadmap that your client base will get to see?”
Lee answered by speaking about ITHAKA’s JSTOR platform:
“We have gone a long way to provide accounts that are affordable for our end users that are professors, researchers, and students. We can do more. We can help people find content more easily and present it to them more readily. We can help them find content they didn’t consciously search for. ‘Did you know that these articles are also available you might not have been aware of?’”
Gill: “I wish this had been invented when I was at university. I love the fact that you’re helping people learn, because the amount of information out there is overwhelming in many ways, and it’s a part of our evolution to create systems that help us find information quicker.”
Lee started her career as an engineer. She said she felt a certain sense of loss or wasn’t sure what she wanted when she was young, but she knew she loved learning. “My PhD advisor used to tell me, ‘You could be burdened by an extra load of a lot of things, but you’ll never be burdened by a load of extra knowledge.’ I took his advice to heart, and while working full-time as an engineer, I worked in information technology, then later got an MBA from Georgetown to broaden my business knowledge. As I grew up as a technology leader, I realized just being technical is not enough. To be successful as a technical leader, I need business knowledge, I need more empathy for my colleagues in finance, and other areas of business.”
Gill, who also has a background in engineering, pointed out that there is a growing awareness that technology leadership isn’t just about technology. How do we use technology to solve business problems for customers?
Generative AI in the EdTech Space
One evergreen topic of interest these days is the enormous impact generative AI is having on all corners of society. “What keeps me up at night, while exciting at the same time, is how generative AI will shape our work and life,” Lee commented. “How can we use it in a way to help our customers? We need to use generative AI in our products and services to make our customers’ lives easier. At the same time, how do we use it to help our employees inside the company through different types of tools to improve productivity in engineering, marketing, and other areas?”
AI use is rapidly expanding, but there is a lot of fear. Gill asked Lee her opinion on the impact of AI and whether she was optimistic or concerned. “I’m optimistic about this technology and it can make our lives easier and accomplish our tasks much quicker and improve our productivity in many areas. We can use this technology to improve users’ lives so they can do their work more effectively, but at the same time we need to be cautious from the perspective of privacy and intellectual property. A lot of policies need to catch up while this technology is growing so fast.”
How do you stay customer centric? “That comes back to our vision and focus, to provide customer value. We will try different product ideas to close that customer need gap and use modern architecture to make our delivery of value quick. Sometimes this idea works and sometimes it doesn’t and we need to try something new. Everything we do is to fulfill that ultimate goal — to provide customer value.”
Gill and Lee also discussed team leadership, how to get the most out of your teams, and how to tie all of this together to fulfill the mission of accessible education.
To listen to the full podcast, visit IT Labs.
Interested in exploring careers and Ann Arbor jobs or New York jobs with ITHAKA? Check out our ITHAKA jobs page to learn more and speak with recruiting.
