Spring 2025 Semester in Review
This past spring, Enterprise Technology continued its momentum as a leader in innovation by pioneering fresh AI solutions and shaping the future of education technology. With an increased focus on mentorship opportunities and collaborative projects across ASU, Arizona, and beyond, Enterprise Technology reaffirmed its commitment to serving learners wherever they are, elevating learning environments and experiences at every level.
By the Numbers
The spring 2025 “By the Numbers” report shows progress in scaling, serving, learning, protecting and thriving at ASU. It tells us how well our teams did and provides qualitative figures for their accomplishments.
Spring 2025 semester recap: Key stories
Throughout the past semester, our newsroom has covered exciting developments centered around technological advancements. Each narrative dives into the ambitious efforts of our students, learners, faculty, and staff, highlighting their dedication to staying current with technological progress and leveraging it to enhance learning outcomes.
These stories underscore ASU's commitment to responsible innovation, both on campus and across the wider Arizona community.
Read on to explore additional highlights from the past semester that showcase Enterprise Technology's commitment to improving learning and working experiences at ASU and beyond.
1.Artificial Intelligence
Students at Next Lab work to bring AI to all
As part of a broader effort to bridge digital divides and connect underserved communities with cutting-edge resources, a team of student workers at ASU Next Lab is working to develop a transformative solution: EDge AI. The initiative’s name highlights the concept of education at "the edge" — reaching communities where access to technology, especially AI, is limited due to financial barriers, lack of internet access, or even unreliable power.
ASU student pioneers AI in teaching and research
Amber Hedquist, a Ph.D. student in the Department of English at ASU, is leading innovation by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) tools into academic and research settings. Her work demonstrates AI’s transformative potential while addressing its limitations and ethical implications. Hedquist is teaching English 301: Writing for the Professions, with plans to empower her students to integrate AI thoughtfully into their professional workflows.
2. Digital transformation
Broadband StoryMap earns global spotlight
“Broadband Stories from the Arizona Community” is a digital storytelling project created by Arizona State University students and partners to highlight the human impact of broadband access across Arizona. Now, the project is earning global recognition as a finalist in the 2024 ArcGIS StoryMaps competition and a featured selection in the April 2025 edition of StoryScape, the magazine’s international showcase of standout digital storytelling using the ArcGIS platform.
Designing the future of learning: Design Summit for ‘2075’ brings bold ideas, real action
What does learning look like in the year 2075? How do we prepare for a world shaped by AI, a skills economy, and technologies we haven’t yet imagined? At the 100-Year EdTech Project’s 2025 Design Summit, hosted in San Antonio by ASU’s Enterprise Technology, UTSA Academic Innovation, SAB Creative & Consulting and StoryCenter, more than 170 educators, students, technologists and industry leaders gathered to answer these questions.
3. Campus-to-community
AI’s potential to break down language barriers
When Kelvyn Park Junior & Senior High School principal Keith Adams noticed that many Spanish-speaking parents felt excluded due to the limited bilingual resources at the Chicago-based school, he was determined to do something about it. In fall 2024, Adams connected with ASU’s Artificial Intelligence Cloud Innovation Center (AI CIC), powered by AWS, to explore a solution, which came in the form of an AI-powered chatbot named “Luisa.” The project, “mAIn Office,” set out to design a bilingual platform experience powered by generative AI.
Mentorship propels ASU engineer’s journey from student to staff
When talking to Torey Takahashi about stand-out moments in her career, mentorship plays a critical role, both in the support she received and the guidance she provided to others. Takahashi first stepped on the ASU campus as a student at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Through the university’s 4+1 program, she earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees in information technology. She then joined ASU Enterprise Technology as a student worker, and her career has only flourished from there.
4. Partnerships to fuel innovation
Bridging education and industry: Zoom AI Spark Challenge spotlights student innovation
As hackathons continue to bridge classroom learning with real-world applications, they offer students valuable opportunities to apply their skills to diverse challenges. The Zoom AI on Campus Spark Challenge exemplified this trend as students presented impactful and ethically driven AI solutions in an innovative pitch competition. Ten finalist teams, totaling 30 students, championed their creative ideas to a panel of judges from Zoom and ASU, competing for prizes of up to $4,000.
ASU among the first universities to deploy Salesforce's new AI agent
Arizona State University is home to one of the largest Salesforce implementations in higher education. And today, the university is among the first to leverage Salesforce’s newest AI product: Agentforce. The proof of concept was drafted and finalized within just 7 days. Frank Montoya, senior IT product manager at ASU Enterprise Technology, and a team of technologists, including Michael Blimbaum, senior Salesforce platform engineer, were tasked to develop proofs of concept using Agentforce.