INDIANAPOLIS, December 14, 2011 – The Kuali community gathered in Indianapolis last month for Kuali Days 2011: Empowering the Community, which boasted three intensive days of presentations, workshops, showcases, receptions and social events. Once again, Kuali Days broke attendance records, drawing 815 attendees from 133 institutions, 36 states, and 7 countries.

The theme for this year’s Kuali Days, “Empowering the Community,” lent itself well to the recent growth in the community.  Successful implementations of Kuali software have been increasing over the past year: Kuali Financial System at Cornell University, Michigan State University, Stevens Institute of Technology, and The University of Arizona; Kuali Coeus for Research Administration at University of Arizona, Indiana University, and University of Hawaii; and Kuali Mobility at Indiana University.  In addition, Kuali has seen an increase in new members, Kuali Ready subscribers and Commercial Affiliates.

Kuali Days 2011 featured two engaging keynote speakers.  Joanne M. DeStefano, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cornell University, delivered an inspiring and honest assessment of Cornell’s experience in delivering a successful implementation of the Kuali Financial System.  DeStefano spoke about the challenges involved with converting a large-scale institution to a new enterprise financial system, as well as the unmistakable benefits of choosing Kuali’s community source solutions for Cornell.

Dr. Michael A. McRobbie, President of Indiana University and world-renowned leader in research and technology, shared his journey with Kuali from its very inception to its current flourishing state.  His was a confident message of unwavering support for the community source model in academe and for Kuali as a whole.

This year’s Kuali Days marked a special victory for the Kuali Mobile project team, fresh off of a successful version 1.0 release and implementation at Indiana University in October, as the Kuali Mobile engine drove the conference via the attractive and easy-to-use Kuali Days Mobile App.  Conference attendees could use the app to access schedules, to rate sessions, to view attendance lists, to learn about featured speakers and to view a map of the host city.

Project Manager for Kuali Mobility, Brian McGough, said, “The KMobility Team put everything they had into developing the Kuali Days Conference App and I think their hard work speaks for itself.  The Conference App was well received by all in attendance and was a practical way to showcase the exciting direction of the Kuali Mobility project and the extensibility of the framework.  The Kuali Mobility team still has some investor slots available for those looking to align their institutional mobile investments with Kuali. ”

Among the first-time attendees was Mark Larmoyeux from The University of Arkansas.  He shared, “The event was marvelously planned and seemed well organized from our perspective…I have to say the materials and presentations were some of the best I have seen in a long time.  All the presenters were ready and worked diligently to stay on topic and on time.”

Another Kuali Days attendee commented in their evaluation, “Kuali Days 2011 was fantastic, from the welcome, the keynote speakers, sessions to the breakouts, to the vendors and a beautiful location.”  The Kuali Foundation would like to thank the community for helping to make this Kuali Days our best yet!

Kuali Days 2012 will be held at the Hilton in Austin, Texas on October 15-17, 2012.  The Conference Chair is Lori Schultz from the University of Arizona.

About Kuali

The Kuali Foundation is a non-profit organization that coordinates the efforts of colleges and universities to sustain and evolve administrative software that meets the needs of all sizes of higher education institutions, from small colleges to large research universities.  The Kuali Foundation began in 2004 as a cooperative effort among partners with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an open-source, community-owned financial system.  Success with joint development of the Kuali Financial System has led to additional pooled investment projects, including Kuali Coeus for Research Administration, Kuali Student, Kuali Rice, Kuali Open Library Environment, Kuali People Management for the Enterprise, Kuali Mobility, and Kuali Ready, with coordination by the independent, not-for-profit Kuali Foundation Inc.  The software developed by Kuali projects is available, without fee, for anyone to use or modify under the Educational Community License.

Kuali Contact:  Jennifer Foutty, jfoutty@kuali.org, 812-345-3948