EnlightenEd

Integration: Ushering in the Future

Integration: Ushering in the Future

Quick – which version of the iPhone is in your pocket right now, and which version of iOS is it running?

 

Is your organization still using Basecamp 2, or have you made the leap to Basecamp 3?

 

Or how about this one – which crucial project were you in the middle of, when Windows decided to force its latest update on your computer?

 

Have you had to take your car to the dealership to get it reprogrammed, or does it get over-the-air updates?

 

Is there any tech out there today that doesn’t need an upgrade every few years?

 

The truth is, almost no new tech truly lasts – whether it’s replaced by a newer version or just never quite catches on (ahem, Google Glass).

 

Anyone hoping to futureproof their organization through the purchase of some cutting-edge new gadget or software is pretty much destined for disappointment.

 

And of course, it’s not just the apps and devices themselves that evolve – new capabilities, previously undreamt of, are constantly reshaping the digital landscape. Digital assistants…augmented reality…chatbots… Who knows what will be coming down the pipeline in the decades ahead?

 

One such sea change has, of course, been the shift to SaaS and cloud-based apps and platforms across the enterprise.

 

And predictably, those apps – and the ways organizations access and integrate them – have evolved, as well.

 

But that’s where things get interesting.  

 

Because…

 

What if, now, you could make a tech purchase that would futureproof your organization?

 

What if, now, you could find an app that wouldn’t be obsolete after a few years – and in fact, was specifically designed to make dealing with as yet unknown tech simple and seamless for decades to come?

 

What if, now, you could strategically position your organization to instantly take advantage of the next wave of tech development, get ahead of the competition, and reap the rewards in your bottom line?

 

In the midst of the flashy SaaS explosion, a quiet but crucial element of enterprise cloud computing has been steadily gaining a larger and larger following of passionate devotees.

 

That element? It’s an API management platform!

 

The Illuminate app – an API management platform that enables you to effectively futureproof your organization.  

      

How does it accomplish this previously unachievable feat?

 

Let’s say you’re the CIO of a university system. You’ve seen the evolution of both hardware and software over the years, and you’ve got the systems and programs in place to prove it – legacy, on-premise databases, some hybrid cloud solutions, and a mish-mash of SaaS apps chosen by different employees and each connected (hopefully!) to everything else by your programmers, so that data can flow freely between them all.

 

You’re fully aware that every time a new app needs to be added into the mix, your programmers will have to get to work again, creating new APIs, integrating it into the mesh, thereby making it even more convoluted than it already is.

 

From that perspective, the future looks expensive, labor-intensive, and complex.

 

And new developments in tech? Not necessarily something to be excited about.

 

Illuminate brings the excitement back.

 

With Illuminate, new apps, new functionalities, and even those as-yet unimagined tech innovations can all be simply, quickly, and affordably integrated with your existing systems and apps – which, themselves, can also be integrated much more elegantly through Illuminate.

 

With Illuminate, you can turn your focus entirely towards finding the tools to take your organization to the next level, rather than worrying about the IT implications.

 

Here’s how it works.

 

Imagine that each SaaS app, and every system or database you have in place, is an island. Data needs to be sent from each island to every other island, in the small island nation that is your organization. (Pina colada, anyone?) That data used to be carried on slow trading ships (APIs) that would travel from each island to each island, tediously connecting each point one-by-one, creating custom APIs for each pair to interface through.

 

Illuminate eliminates the need for this process by adding a central island interface to the nation. Now, ships only need to travel from their island to the central island, where they offload their cargo for immediate distribution to all other islands. The Illuminate platform takes the output from one API and transforms it into input for every other API, so that all your islands can communicate seamlessly, and new islands can be added to the nation at any time without anyone even batting an eye.

 

With Illuminate, you don’t need a stable of programmers in order to integrate new technology. You don’t need hours of coding work, or complex webs of connections. Illuminate allows you to streamline your IT department, cut costs, and increase efficiency – all while positioning your organization to be able to take full advantage of whatever the next wave of tech innovation might bring.

 

You may want to grab that pina colada now.

 

It’s time to get excited about IT again.


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N2N Wins 2018 Blockchain Vendor Integration Award

N2N Wins 2018 Blockchain Vendor Integration Award

The Blockchain for Education Awards were announced at the 2018 Blockchain Essentials in Education Conference on May 16th at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, OK. Awards were presented in four categories: Blockchain Vendor Integration, Blockchain for Education Vision, Blockchain for Education Collaboration and Blockchain Education Champion.

N2N Services was awarded the Blockchain Vendor Integration Award during a ceremony held on May 16, 2018. Michael L. Mathews, AVP for Innovation and Technology at Oral Roberts University, presented the award to N2N’s Founder and CEO Kiran Kodithala. “Companies like N2N are instrumental in integrating all the pieces across the campus that make Blockchain viable to transform education” said Mathews.

The Blockchain Vendor Integration Award is given to the vendor who has completed a Blockchain application for education whereby it integrates to the Student Information System and awards a credential, certificate, diploma and/or degree while showing a value on future investment or significant return on investment.

“I am excited about leading companies like N2N who are ushering in the Fluidity of education to personalize education,” says Kathaleen Reid-Martinez, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Oral Roberts University. “Blockchain and AI with innovative integrations through N2N give me every hope of transformation on a global scale.”

This award emphasises the commitment and investment N2N has made in innovative technologies that promote the advancement higher education systems. “Our current education systems are dated, we still use outdated constructs like transcripts, credit hours, and sage on the stage. These outdated systems are making education expensive and out of reach for a majority of students.” said Kodithala. “N2N is committed to leveraging technology innovations for the success of every student worldwide. N2N believes that Blockchain technology, powered by AI and VR can truly transform education”

ABOUT BLOCKCHAIN IN EDUCATION

The Blockchain Essentials for Education Conference was hosted by Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Conference enables education professionals to understand how blockchain technology such as cryptocurrency, smart contracts, distributed databases, and public ledgers are, and will continue to transform higher education.  For more information visit: https://www.blockchain-education18.com/


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N2N on the Road: Blockchain in Education Conference in Tulsa, OK

N2N on the Road: Blockchain in Education Conference in Tulsa, OK
On May 16th, 2018 N2N’s CEO and Founder Kiran Kodithala headed to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma for The Blockchain Essentials for Education Conference.  Kiran was a featured speaker at the event where he presented “Blockchains and their Impact on Higher Education.”  Kiran discussed his vision on Blockchain’s impact on education and participated in the closing panel discussion of Short-term and Long-term views of Blockchain technologies.

 

   

 

The Blockchain in Education Conference enabled education professionals to understand how blockchain technology such as cryptocurrency, smart contracts, distributed databases, and public ledgers are, and will continue to transform higher education.

According to Oral Roberts AVP of Innovation and Technology, Michael L. Mathews, “We predict along with many other national thought leaders that Blockchain will have the greatest impact on campus operations and SIS/ERP systems over the next five years, and have little to on the transcript itself. The true value of Blockchain will come from the streamlining of all the processes that formerly produced the academic steps necessary to get transcripts and a diploma/degree. This will include the freedom of people from anywhere in the world the ability to digitally unlock academic content, in order to operate in a newly created ‘trusted’ ecosystem of academic and competency access. The Blockchain for education will ultimately become the Digital Vending Machine in the Cloud. The question will be … which institution was ahead of the curve to capture the digital credits assigned through a trusted Blockchain world.”

   

The collaboration within the conference included 30 Universities, the Oklahoma Board of Regents CIO, the President of TouchNet, Blockchain companies, and executive leaders from N2N, Carousel Industries, Salesforce, Workday, Oracle, Ellucian, JobZology, OneNet, TrustedKey, 3Dream Studios, and many more.

https://www.blockchain-education18.com/

 


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N2N on the Road: DIG South in Charleston, SC

N2N on the Road: DIG South in Charleston, SC

DIG SOUTH, located in Charleston, South Carolina was held April 25-27, 2018 at the Charleston Gaillard Center.  DIG SOUTH connects leading global brands like Oracle, IBM and Salesforce to the top tech leaders and entrepreneurs in the South.  DIG Focuses on 3 core tracks: Technology, Business and Marketing. Attendees include, the top 500 tech companies in the South plus leading C-level innovators and disruptors, entrepreneurs, startups, and virtually every level of technologist who get together to share the latest digital trends and build relationships.

On Thursday April 26, N2N Founder and CEO Kiran Kodithala was featured in a fireside chat sponsored by Oracle entitled From Startup to Enterprise: the Path to Rapid Growth  and moderated by Loren Feldman, Senior Editor for Entrepreneurship, Forbes. In this discussion Kiran recounted how he started N2N with a mission to create an interoperable enterprise that would support customers, vendors, administrators, and other staff.   Kiran also discussed his decision to switch from Amazon to Oracle as  a technology partner and how this decision helped N2N significantly cut costs and build a better business foundation that gives the company the upper hand while supporting an aggressive growth strategy.

http://charleston.digsouth.com/

#DIG2018 #DIGSOUTH #N2NIlluminate


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CEO Blog: Blockchains in Education

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CEO Blog: Blockchains in Education

CEO Blog: Blockchains in Education

by Kiran Kodithala

As educational institutions start thinking of new models of learning and affordable education, one of the common threads for this transformation is enabling a student to enroll in a course at any institution and apply this course towards his degree progression. This interoperability and interconnectivity between educational institutions is so vital that some state legislatures have passed laws to mandate institutions within the state to allow students to cross-enroll. While this is a very noble effort it is often very difficult to implement because of the disparity between each educational institution and lack of common standards for sharing data. Such interoperability is difficult and may require contracts between institutions to respect the disparities between course catalogs, student grades, and other administrative data.

Thanks to Blockchain technology, such issues can easily be resolved by exposing institutional data thorough standardized APIs. N2N’s Integration Platform, Illuminate, can enable Blockchain
APIs at participating institutions. These Blockchain APIs can be used real-time or ad-hoc to support the development of a secure online database that stores the rules and contracts between participating institutions.

Real-world examples of  Blockchains in education use-cases include:
1. Participating institutions upload course catalogs to the Blockchain system and map institution’s course catalog to the Blockchain master catalog

2. Participating institutions upload grading policies to the Blockchain system and map institution’s grading scale to Blockchain master grading scale

3. Participating institutions upload transfer policies to the Blockchain system and map institution’s transfer policies to Blockchain master transfer policies

4. Students search for available courses on the Blockchain course shopping cart

5. Students register for a course of their choice from an institution of their preference through Blockchain registration module

6. Students can upload their unstructured learning portfolio to Blockchain Personal Value Ledger (PVL)

7. Students can submit their PVL to participating institutions for earning course credits towards their degree progression

8. Students can submit their PVL to participating employers to apply for a job.

Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt how we learn, graduate and earn in ways we can only dream of. The Illuminate Platform’s turnkey SIS APIs, Blockchain Support and Integration API catalogs can enable a seamless transition to this bright future.

 


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N2N on the Road: Ellucian Live in San Diego, CA

N2N on the Road: Ellucian Live in San Diego, CA

The Conference

Five members of the N2N team headed out west for Ellucian Live 2018 in sunny San Diego, California.  The conference was expected to host 8,000 attendees from 43 countries representing 1,300 higher education institutions and is billed as the largest user event in higher education technology.  We were thrilled to join the conference this year as an Ellucian Alliance partner.

      

The Networking

The N2N team connected with hundreds of existing customers and prospects over the course of 3 days.  We demoed the new Illuminate 2.0 platform from our exhibit hall booth and offered attendees a 3 month free trial subscription. If you missed us at the conference don’t worry, we’d be happy to schedule a demo or provide you a free trial account, just let us know: sales@n2nservices.com. On Monday evening N2N hosted a reception to celebrate our Ellucian Partnership and the launch of Illuminate 2.0 and we want to thank all who joined us for a fun evening.

     

The Platform

N2N recently launched Illuminate 2.0, our API integration and management platform.  Illuminate 2.0 expands upon existing features in 1.0 with an upgraded user experience. The Illuminate infrastructure has also been upgraded and moved to the Oracle Cloud.  Existing customers still using Illuminate 1.0 were excited to see the new platform and eager to upgrade.

   

The Swag

Because everyone at a conference loves good swag!  N2N sponsored this year’s exhibit hall tote bag, over 5000 bags were handed out to conference attendees. We were thrilled with the sea of teal bags that could be seen walking through the hall each day.

Those who stopped by the booth for a visit were able to snag an Illuminate light bulb (stress ball) or other assorted items.

   

And the Winner is….

At the booth visitors were able to enter for a chance to win a 1 year subscription to Illuminate Spectrum, valued at $60K. We had well over a hundred entries for the random drawing and the lucky winner is …..

Lenell Hahn of Southeast Missouri State University

Congratulations Lenell!

We’d like to thank everyone who joined us at the conference and we’ll see you all next year!


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