The annual EDUCAUSE conference highlighted higher education technology trends, goals, challenges, and how to identify a way ahead for higher education institutions to be successful in today’s modern world.

Data analytics played a pivotal role in state, local, and education (SLED) governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the emphasis on the importance of data has only continued to magnify over the last couple of years. Data analytics and related technology tools provide a host of benefits ranging from real-time data analysis, increased transparency and accountability, streamlined citizen facing services, better decision making and savings in both costs and time.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. So you know something’s wrong when nearly a third of federal government acquisition professionals surveyed say their agency’s acquisition technology makes the job more difficult.

The good news is that we’ve officially moved into the next phase of the pandemic, where the White House expects the threat of serious illness to be considerably diminished. But the bad news? Nearly 18 million Americans stand to lose the Medicaid benefits granted to them during the public health crisis as eligibility determinations return to pre-pandemic guidelines.

Welcome to 2023 — an era of modernization where public sector information technology (IT) market growth is dominated by technologies that can create operational efficiencies and enhance the delivery of citizen-facing services. IT leaders are approaching municipality and jurisdictional operations from the lens of optimization, and there is only room for "smart" solutions.

Cloud services continue to be a top priority for state chief information officers (CIOs), but the focus has accelerated due to the emergence of digital government and disruptions brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the last few years, we’ve seen cloud services quickly become a “must-have” for state, local and education (SLED) customers, emphasizing cost savings, scalability, agility, and flexibility.

In recent years, we have seen the rapid growth of esports (electronic sports), or competitive video gaming, with the global esports market already surpassing $1 billion and, according to a recent report from Stratview Research, expected to reach over $9 billion in 2028. Therefore, it should be no surprise that this trend has caught the interest of educational institutions, especially considering over 60% of esports fans are within the age range of the average secondary and post-secondary student, between 13 and 26 years old.

2022 was a noteworthy year for the technology sector, particularly as it relates to cybersecurity. The post-pandemic era of modernization exposed the fragility of U.S. public sector technology infrastructure and systems, widening attack surfaces and posing additional challenges for state, local and education leaders. We have witnessed the whole gamut of continually evolving security threats, ranging from election security breaches, nation-state actors, threats to critical infrastructure, ransomware attacks, hacktivism and more.

Many state and local governments are approaching the end of their fiscal year (June 30^th). Between now and then government contractors can expect an acceleration in purchasing as agencies rush to spend “use it or lose it” dollars.

Faced with an endless barrage of threats and vulnerabilities, finding the time to develop a proactive risk mitigation strategy is an uphill struggle for government organizations. With so much energy focused  on protecting the perimeter and preventing network penetration, malicious actors (the enemy with no face) already inside your network often goes unnoticed (case in point, the 2015 OPM breach).