There's never been a better time to attend EDUCAUSE! Who wouldn't want to hear education revolutionaries and TED Talk alumnae, Sugata Mitra and Susan Cain speak, along with the best thinkers in Higher Education IT? EDUCAUSE is higher education's premiere technology event, and this year thousands of university leaders, industry experts, and more are gathering in Anaheim, California, to discuss best practices and innovations.

On Wednesday, October 26th, I'll be joining Georgia State University and Mercer University to discuss changes in virtual learning environments, and how technology is advancing student outcomes. I hope you can join us to learn more about how integrated programs get students, teachers, parents and college staff more involved in outcomes!

I'm also thrilled that Peter Romness, a cybersecurity expert here at Cisco, along with University of Wisconsin -Madison will be speaking on Thursday, October 27^th, about cybersecurity in higher education. This is a critical issue for colleges and universities, since networks are growing exponentially with troves of faculty research and student data that need protection. Peter will discuss effective threat detection and how to limit attacks by being digital-ready.

Another revealing session will be led by Cisco high performance computing (HPC) expert Tae Hwang on Wednesday, October 26th. Tae will address how campus IT infrastructure and HPC clusters can integrate to become a better resource for students, faculty, and staff. If you work for a research university, you'll want to attend this session!

Beyond these provocative discussions, we will also have the best and brightest from Cisco's higher education team on-hand to demonstrate different secure solutions for students, faculty, and staff:

• End-to-end, full spectrum technologies that support cloud computing
• Integrations that make teaching and learning accessible anywhere
• Licensing that brings digital-ready technology to staff easily and affordably

There's never been a better time to reimagine education. Be sure to look out for updates from EDUCAUSE on social media -we're on Twitter at @CiscoHigherEdu and @CiscoEdu, and on Facebook at Cisco. U.S. Education. Also keep an eye on the blog this week for my takeaways from the show floor. Finally, if you'll be at EDUCAUSE, make sure to visit us at booth 1101 to see our higher education solutions in action!