Member Spotlight: Marques Stewart
Professional Bio:
Marques Stewart has worked in educational IT for over 20 years in K-12 and Higher Education roles. He served for 2 years in the Peace Corps on the island of Western Samoa, where he learned a lot of what it takes to run an IT department with limited resources and a lot of ingenuity, exactly what you need to have in the non-profit/K-12 space.
Company Name & Description:
Achievement First / Achievement First is a high-performing charter management organization overseeing 41 schools across three states. We service approximately 3,000 staff members and 150,000 students, primarily in low-income areas of the three states we operate in.
Company Website:
Year Founded:
1999
Headquarters:
New York, NY
Primary Areas of Focus:
I oversee all facets of the organization's technology, from endpoints (such as Chromebooks/laptops) to cloud platforms (such as GCP/AWS) and everything in between.
Current Projects/Initiatives:
We are focused on improving our password policy to support remote users and creating a policy around the use of AI within the organization
Quote (on a key industry trend or initiative you're passionate about):
“Previously, our industry talked a lot about the SSO tax (companies charging more for the ability to have SSO in their project). I'm seeing the same thing when it comes to AI (i.e., An AI tax), and for the most part, these products/add-ons are not ready for prime time but are being charged as if they were. ”
LinkedIn:
