robotic process automation (RPA)

Mason’s new tech initiative is set to be an automatic game changer

Mariam Aburdeineh — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 18:57:24 +0000

Mason’s new tech initiative is set to be an automatic game changer Mariam Aburdeineh Mon, 09/13/2021 - 14:57

In This Story

David Rehr, Mason alumni, and other industry professionals discuss careers in the RPA industry as part of Mason's new RPA Initiative. Photo provided.

David Rehr said he has spent his entire life thinking about how government can be more efficient and effective.

The ��AV alumnus and director of Mason’s Center for Business Civic Engagement at the Schar School of Policy and Government spent 25 years as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Before that, he was a child growing up in the Midwest, the son of a hardworking postman who didn’t attend college.

His time in government, he said, made him a bit cynical, feeling that citizens’ hard-earned tax dollars, like his father’s, weren’t being used the most resourcefully.

Rehr said he learned about Robotic Process Automation (RPA)—what he believes could be the key to solving government and public sector inefficiencies—when he met someone from global software company UiPath in 2020.

That led to Rehr co-founding Mason’s RPA Initiative, in partnership with UiPath, in January.

“This gives Mason a really unique opportunity to help the public sector, and to make programs work better for citizens,” said Rehr, who earned a PhD in economics from Mason in 1998. “We’re the only university I could find that has such a program.”

“Mason has a history of innovation, technology, and studying public policy,” said Bobby Patrick, UiPath CMO. “We believe the partnership is a great fit and will benefit citizens seeking greater value in public-sector programs and initiatives.”

Rehr spoke over the phone about the initiative and its benefits.

What is RPA and how is it used?

RPA is an easy-to-use, commercial off-the-shelf technology that can automate repetitive, rules-based tasks.

During COVID, RPA greatly reduced the time it took to receive COVID test results. Another application analyzed photos of infected lungs…the robotics could determine within about a minute if you were going to have a complication.

There’s a digital assistant where if you have to fill out HR paperwork, you can scan your driver’s license and all your paperwork is filled out for you. For W-4 forms that multiple people have to sign, RPA can automatically send it to your supervisors, who are signaled by the technology that they have something to approve. It’s continuous from there.

Tell us about Mason’s RPA Initiative.

At the Schar School, we’re always focusing on how we can be innovative in our teaching and make an impact in the world.

The mission of the initiative is to research, educate, and communicate how the adoption of technologies can improve productivity, operations and service delivery for traditional and novel challenges of the public sector.

What can we look forward to with the initiative?

We’re hoping to be able to hire more students to work on projects, to further educate through webinars and instruction, do research, and communicate the benefits of RPA to the public sector.

The [School of Business] also has an RPA class. We’re hoping to take a multidisciplinary approach: how can we use all the Mason resources to make sure our students are aware of the opportunities and get hired when they graduate.

Will RPA replace human labor?

There’s not a substitution effect; there’s a complementary effect. This technology will help programs work better for people and more efficiently. It liberates workers from mundane things, which don’t appeal to their imagination. Using RPA will allow people the freedom to think about high value work priorities and unleash greater economic growth, greater prosperity, make everyone’s lives better, and help people have more fulfilling lives.

Where can people go to learn more about RPA?

The initiative produced a paper aimed at non-IT workers in June that’s been picked up around the world. We include examples of what’s happening globally with RPA, and explain the technology in a non-technical way. Those interested in getting involved can visit the RPA Initiative website.

Topics

Schar School

Schar School Faculty

robotic process automation (RPA)

Alumni

Business

Costello College of Business

Center for Business Civic Engagement

innovation

Campus News

Schar School News September 2021

UiPath donates $16.4 million in software for students in ��AV’s School of Business

John Hollis — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 10:00:00 +0000

UiPath donates $16.4 million in software for students in ��AV’s School of Business John Hollis Thu, 02/20/2020 - 05:00

Topics

Costello College of Business

robotic process automation (RPA)

Artificial Intelligence

Press Releases

UiPath donates $16.4 million in software for Mason School of Business students

Colleen Rich — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 14:30:42 +0000

UiPath donates $16.4 million in software for Mason School of Business students Colleen Rich Wed, 02/19/2020 - 09:30

In This Story

Maury Peiperl

Candace Deans

��AV’s School of Business announced today that software company UiPath is donating $16.4 million in software licenses to help business students learn about robotic technology in classroom assignments and activities.

The in-kind donation includes 8,200 three-year user licenses for robotic process automation (RPA) software. With the donation from UiPath, undergraduate and graduate School of Business students will have a unique ability to gain a deep understanding of how to create and use RPA robots.

“This game-changing contribution of RPA software and support from UiPath will be a valuable complement to the school’s focus on the future of work, and will help our students gain insight into new models for business,” said Maury Peiperl, dean of the School of Business. “The opportunity for students and faculty to work with innovators like UiPath is of immense benefit to all involved.”

RPA allows users to configure computer software to emulate the actions of humans interacting with digital systems. RPA robots can capture data and manipulate applications, triggering responses and communicating with other systems to perform a variety of repetitive tasks.

Candace Deans, an associate professor in the School of Business, said that the donation will allow students to delve more fully into the potential uses for RPA in the business world.

“We are at the beginning of the artificial intelligence revolution, and it will transform the business world,” said Deans. “More and more things that humans did will be done by bots or machines, and we want our students aware of the technology trends.”

Deans has already been exposing students in her Introduction to Business Information Systems course to RPA technology. Students in the class use the UIPath software to create bots that could describe the weather in particular locations and then give advice on what clothing to wear.

Rajdeep Manaise, a graduate student in the School of Business pursing his Master of Science in Technology Management, helped teach students in Deans’ class to program their weather bots.

“The feedback we got at the end of the semester was that students thought it was an interesting and helpful exercise,” said Manaise.

Karen Kitching, an associate professor of accounting in the School of Business, says she assigns projects involving using RPA software to data wrangle, the process of transforming raw data into a format used for decision-making. Kitching says the exercise helps her Advanced Accounting Analytics students understand how the technology can improve productivity.

UiPath is the fastest-growing technology company in North America, according to Deloitte’s 2019 Technology Fast 500.

“[Artificial intelligence] and automation will create more than 100 million new jobs in the near future,” said Tom Clancy, senior vice president of UiPath Learning. “We at UiPath see it as our responsibility to help close this emerging skills gap by empowering tomorrow’s workforce to understand how to best use this technology to their personal, and their future employers’, advantage.”

Clancy said he was thrilled to partner with Mason’s School of Business and its more than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students “to showcase what’s possible with RPA and to give them the tools they need to propel better ways of working.”

The software will allow students in all the business classes to learn more about RPA.