UT Dallas > Computer Science > Information > Washington Post’s CIO/CTO, Shailesh Prakash launches the UT Dallas CS Fall 2015 Distinguished Lecture Series

Washington Post’s CIO/CTO, Shailesh Prakash launches the UT Dallas CS Fall 2015 Distinguished Lecture Series

On November 6th, the UT Dallas Computer Science Department’s Distinguished Lecture series featured Mr. Shailesh Prakash, Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief of Technology (CTO) at The Washington Post as the first speaker. Mr. Prakash holds a BS in Computer Science from IIT, Mumbai, a MS in Computer Science from Clemson University, and an MBA from Georgia State University. He is the Chief Product and Technology Officer of The Washington Post and is responsible for all aspects of Product Development and Technology, including web, mobile, video, print and advertising.

The talk Mr. Prakash delivered was titled “Editors and Engineers: Can Technology save the Media Industry?” During his lecture, he addressed how the introduction of the Internet has changed society’s boundaries and the changes from where consumers use to get their news, find jobs, go shopping, and find dates.

Mr. Prakash notes, “Newspapers dealt with that disruption, and adapted to the web. And now that they have just begun to think they have evolved with sophisticated advertising exchanges and paywalls, the mobile revolution is doing to the web what the web did to print! The trend of ‘mobile dimes to desktop dollars’ is forcing media organizations to once again adapt and change rapidly.”

Prakash raised important questions, including, “What is Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post, one of the most known news brands in the world, doing to survive and thrive in the changing landscape of today? What kinds of technologies are at play as it tries to figure out the future of news?” During his lecture, Dr. Prakash addressed those questions and more.

Dr. Prakash has an extensive record of accomplishment in senior positions spanning multiple industries. He began his career as a software engineer building compilers for Motorola, moving to positions of increasing responsibility at Sun Microsystems and Netscape, where he designed and implemented enterprise-class web application platforms, and Microsoft where he was a key member of the Bing search engine.

Before coming to The Washington Post, he was the Vice President in charge of Technology for Sears Holdings, where he oversaw end-to-end technology functions for sears.com, kmart.com, craftsman.com and kenmore.com, which collectively generate more than $3 billion in annual e-Commerce revenue. At The Washington Post, Dr. Prakash is the Executive Vice President for Product Development & Chief Technology Officer. He has been with The Washington Post since August of 2011 and under his leadership, and in close partnership with the newsroom, The Washington Post has seen tremendous digital growth. As a result, Fast Company magazine recently named The Washington Post “The World’s Most Innovative Media Company of 2015”


ABOUT THE UT DALLAS COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

The UT Dallas Computer Science program is one of the largest Computer Science departments in the United States with over 1,600 bachelor’s-degree students, more than 1,100 master’s students, 160 PhD students, and 80 faculty members, as of Fall 2015. With The University of Texas at Dallas’ unique history of starting as a graduate institution first, the CS Department is built on a legacy of valuing innovative research and providing advanced training for software engineers and computer scientists.

Click here to view the UT Dallas CS Department’s Flickr account for photos from past events.