EdTech: Dr Hernan Londono of Dell Technologies On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact On Education

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course, many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact.” We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. In this particular installment, we are talking to leaders of Education Technology companies, who share how their tech is helping to improve our educational system. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Hernan Londono.

Dr. Hernan Londono, Chief Technology and Innovation Strategist for Education at Dell Technologies is a notable figure in the world of technology and education.

Prior to his tenure at Dell Technologies, Dr. Londono dedicated more than two decades to serving as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) within the academic sphere. Dr. Londono’s academic credentials include a B.S. and M.S. from Barry University in Computer Science, and Information Technology respectively, and a Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University. Currently, Dr. Londono completed post-doctoral work at the Harvard Business School in Artificial Intelligence in the context of business competitive advantage.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I was born in a small town at 9,000 ft above sea level in the Colombian Andes. I grew up in a small household with my father, a steel mill factory worker and part-time accountant, my mother, initially an administrative assistant and later a full-time housewife, as well as an older brother and sister.

Our family was considered to be at the bottom of the forming middle class at the time. We didn’t have much but didn’t miss anything at the same time. I didn’t have access to computers or the internet growing up. Instead, I spent time riding the bike, playing soccer, swimming and fishing in rivers I wasn’t supposed to and occasionally getting in trouble.

I had my first contact with computers at the age of 25. A year later I entered a computer science program, notably not only the oldest student in the cohort, but also the oldest to graduate. The trajectory continued, but ironically, I was the youngest to graduate with my Ph.D.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

In 1997, a few months into my first IT job, the head of IT at Barry University asked me to join a meeting with his IT staff one Friday afternoon. He announced Microsoft had started to ship its Windows operating system with Internet Explorer installed by default and we needed to make a consequential decision.

The biggest fear was a decrease in productivity because internet browsing was a distraction. The decision was whether we uninstall Internet Explorer from the computers and perhaps, block it from being installed again.

This moment will stick with me forever; it was the inflection point of societal change forced by an emergent technology. It quickly became abundantly clear that uninstalling the browser would’ve done nothing to stop or slow the kinetic energy that was fueling this transformation.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

John Beaubrun, CTO at the university where I got hired, is the leader who fostered the browser discussion in 1997. The man who had the power to make the decision on his own but decided to come to a collective agreement with his team. In fact, years later when I called out the executive power he had, he smiled and said his mind was already made up before the meeting, but he was interested in seeing how his team would come up with a conclusion; it was a leadership and vision test. He inspired and guided me, often in unorthodox ways. He saw the spark in me that others, perhaps even myself, didn’t.

And for a silver lining — I had the privilege, many years later, to take on the CTO title once he passed. It was a full-circle humbling moment that I cherish deeply.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

It’s a longer quote that US presidents used at least twice: Theodore Roosevelt during the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910, and Richard Nixon during his resignation address to the nation on August 8, 1974. It’s a quote about resiliency and pragmatism, executing, leading by example and not critiquing others at their worst moments, rather joining them in action even if that means taking a risk and accepting failure. It has guided my life for many years.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Drive, Discipline, Vision.

I truly can use a single story to illustrate all three character traits.

Around 2006, I was a non-native English speaker with a full-time, demanding managerial IT job. I had a family with 2 young kids. Data suggested I wasn’t likely to succeed in completing my Ph.D., specifically in Computer Science.

I had the vision to see how this degree would enable me to advance in life. I had the discipline to get up at 3:00 AM daily to ensure my academic work did not interfere with my professional and personal life. I had the drive to cut through the noise of naysayers and move forward. It indeed took me longer than anticipated, but the achievement prevailed.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive social impact on our educational systems. To begin, what problems are you aiming to solve?

A huge part of my role is helping schools transform education for the digital era, with the goal of deepening learning for all students.

One of my primary responsibilities includes framing strategies in the use of emergent technology. Most recently, Generative AI and its potential impact have dominated this landscape, especially for higher education as it relates to the cost of a degree, student success/retention, institutional financial stability and recruitment/admissions. A large portion of the work I do is to help illustrate the vision for how institutional data, coupled with emergent technologies like AI, can help address these issues, considering privacy, security and fairness.

How do you think your technology can address this?

With the convergence of AI and ubiquitous (perhaps inexpensive) computing in a very “democratized” fashion, analysis of existing institutional data for the purpose of predictive analytics has become very simple. This allows the discovery of correlations and causation amongst data elements that can aid in the decision-making and/or action-taking when addressing any of the issues already mentioned. Things like recommending a better course sequence to a student so that he/she has an increased chance to complete his/her degree in the shortest amount of time with the highest probability of success.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about education?

The story is perhaps a very personal one. It is my own story. Coming initially to this country as an undocumented immigrant and later having the opportunity and access to education in a way that would drive the trajectory of my own life, with every degree attained to where I am today. Education has paved the way for me, and I’m humbled to give it forward in many ways.

How do you think your technology might change the world?

I tend to remain optimistic when answering this question, while understanding the risks. It’s clear that AI has the potential to help society be more inclusive. For example, educating an underrepresented population is often difficult due to the lack of human capacity. For example for non-native English speakers, Generative AI can provide language translation options at marginal or negligible costs. In addition to education, I also see technology leading the charge in the healthcare world, with better patient outcomes.

Keeping the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

A clear unintended consequence of using AI, and one that people don’t really spend the necessary time to think about, is bias.

It’s a common practice to say that the “AI is biased” or the “algorithm is biased.” When in reality, AI is producing outcomes based on statistical analysis of the given data. Further and most importantly, in most cases, it’s the data that has embedded biases, which is a reflection of organizational practices.

Discovering an organization’s biases via AI use is generally an unintended outcome and should be used by organizations to self-evaluate what needs to change to eliminate these biases.

How do you envision the landscape of education evolving over the next decade, and how does your technology fit into that future?

With the use of AI, I expect education to be more affordable, accessible and personalized. All of these are only possible at scale with a technology that can take heavy workloads off humans — things that can be automated and executed fast — in a way that enables humans to work on higher-level abstraction/valuable tasks and mundane and repetitive low-value ones are relegated to AI.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)

1. Ethics: Ensure the use of the technology doesn’t result in harm to groups or individuals. For example, using historical loan repayment data, coupled with AI, to automate loan approvals, where AI can help amplify the bias against people of certain races or ethnicities because of historical practices against them.

2. Privacy: Ensure that groups or individuals cannot be re-identified, even after data has been “de-identified” to protect sensitive details about themselves present in datasets. For example, even when names and IDs are removed from a dataset, but a zip code is available, a person can still be identified because there is only one person in that zip code, and the dataset has additional information (i.e., healthcare) to identify the person.

3. Fairness: Ensure the guardrails are introduced so that bias is not amplified. For example, using statistical parity.

4. Inclusiveness: Ensure the technology does not exclude explicitly or implicitly any groups or classes of individuals. For example, make sure people with disabilities can access the technology as any other individual can.

In the realm of EdTech, there’s often data collection involved. How do you ensure the ethical handling of user data, especially when it concerns students?

One can use the principles of K-anonymity and differential privacy.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

There are endless environmental issues and social inequalities that require innovative solutions and fresh perspectives. Young individuals can bring unique insights, creativity and passion, and be the catalysts for change.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Former US President Barack Obama. His journey really embodies the interconnectedness of vision, discipline, passion, drive and focus in achieving success.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

The best way is via LinkedIn.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.