MARCH 7, 2025 — More than 40 UTSA students, faculty and staff learned about artificial intelligence applications and had an opportunity to connect with industry leaders at a Lunch & Learn event presented recently by Rackspace. This was the second year Rackspace hosted the event, in collaboration with University Technology Solutions’ (UTS) Bold Careers Interns and Ambassadors Program (Bold Careers).
The UTS Bold Careers program connects students with internships and ambassador opportunities around campus and through a network of state and national partners. Its goal is to help students establish professional relationships, learn about industry trends and explore employment opportunities.
Rackspace, a hybrid multi-cloud service pioneer, founded in San Antonio, has a long history of supporting UTSA and its students.
“UTSA is heavily involved in educating their students, staff and faculty on how to understand the complexities of artificial intelligence. Today’s event offered a vision in applying AI in business and cloud,” said Jason Wicker, chief architect for Rackspace Technology. “San Antonio is in a unique place for artificial intelligence research because of the triumvirate with academic, military and technology companies.”
The keynote focused on the responsible and practical use of AI. This stems from the company’s recent AI adoption, The Foundry for AI by Rackspace (FAIR), which aims to help facilitate the use of generative AI in all industries. The conversation touched on multiple topics, such as Rackspace’s FAIR AI principles, which emphasize the ethical and sustainable use of AI to promote ingenuity and decision-making. It also expanded on security, the pros and cons of open-source, and the optimization of AI.
The responsible use of AI is significant because of the inevitable integration into business’ core operations.
Pitman Kennedy, an innovation program manager with the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center and a partner of Joint Base San Antonio, discussed how events like this week’s Lunch and Learn are important for his workflow.
He states that “having the ability to network and understand who the capability owners are — who has what — in an effort to solve your requirements and fill your operational gaps. Hopefully by the end of the event you can merge and fill the gap.”
“Our experiential learning partnership with Rackspace has served as an outstanding opportunity for our students, faculty, staff and the surrounding community to explore not only the current technology trends but delve far into the future,” said Vanessa Hammler Kenon, UTSA associate vice president of Technology Compliance and Community Engagement. “Programs like this one expand on the UTSA mission in both the areas of experiential learning as well as community engagement.”
By 2028, UTSA aims to have 75% of its students participate in one or more experiential learning opportunities. Initiatives such as the UTS Bold Careers Program are helping the university reach that goal.
This program is also aligned with UTSA’s Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation, recognition that validates its commitment and positive impact on the economy and surrounding communities.
UTSA Today is produced by University Communications and Marketing, the official news source of The University of Texas at San Antonio. Send your feedback to news@utsa.edu. Keep up-to-date on UTSA news by visiting UTSA Today. Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram.
Students, faculty and staff are invited to join UTSA's delegation at the annual César E. Chávez March for Justice in downtown San Antonio. Free transportation will be provided from the Main and Downtown Campuses, and all university community participants will receive a complimentary commemorative t-shirt (while supplies last)
1310 Guadalupe Street, San Antonio, TexasJoin UTSA Libraries and Museums to learn more about the publishing discounts available for UTSA researchers.
Virtual Event (Zoom)PubMed is an essential database for anyone conducting biomedical or health-related research. This workshop will teach attendees how to effectively navigate this free resource and locate peer-reviewed articles using advanced search features, MeSH subject headings, and Boolean operators.
Virtual Event (Zoom)Join us for a hands-on workshop about the basics of copyright, both in education and as a researcher. We’ll dispel some common copyright myths, differences between copyright law and other intellectual property law, and teach you how to apply a Fair Use checklist to your scholarly work.
Virtual Event (Zoom)In this workshop, we will explore sentiment analysis, a method for identifying feelings in text, whether the tone is positive, negative, or neutral.
Group Spot B, John Peace LibraryThe Urban Bird Project at UTSA will discuss urban bird populations, conservation efforts, and how you can get involved.
JPL Assembly Room (4.04.22,) Main CampusLearn to use the simple but powerful features of EndNote®, a citation management tool. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn to setup an EndNote library, save references and PDFs, and automatically create and edit a bibliography.
Virtual Event ( Zoom)The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.
UTSA is a proud Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as designated by the U.S. Department of Education .
The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to promoting access for all. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.
