The College of Southern Nevada was awarded one of CIO’s 100 Awards for IT innovation and leadership for its presidential avatar project, led by Mugunth Vaithylingam and in partnership with AI Foundation.
The CIO 100 Awards celebrates 100 organizations and the teams within them that are using IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers. It is an acknowledged mark of enterprise excellence.
The College of Southern Nevada turned to cutting-edge technology – an avatar named Digital President Zaragoza (DPZ) and based on the real-life CSN president – to help engage students and improve their educational experience.
Teams overseen by CSN CIO Mugunth Vaithylingam combined custom AI visuals, voice, and content to create this first-of-its-kind custom avatar. The avatar, since redesigned as a student dubbed ‘Ellie,’ provides students with a personalized connection to administrative services, as well as support in need.
