Full Name
Rick Goldgar
Job Title
Global Solutions Executive
Company
IBM Education Industry
Speaker Bio
Dr. Goldgar is the IBM Global Solutions Executive and Product Owner for the Learning Credential Network (LCN). He was responsible for the original architecture of the LCN and currently leads the product functionality, use cases and roadmap definition efforts. He is also instrumental in LCN business planning, client relationships, partnerships and supports business and financial modeling.

Dr. Goldgar has been with IBM more than eight years, previously in IBM Watson Research, Watson Education and in the IBM Center of Competency. He has supported numerous key education initiatives at IBM in both k-12 and higher education and has worked directly with clients across the world. In addition to his work in the education industry, Dr. Goldgar has also worked with top IBM clients in the transportation and insurance industries and in the public sector.

Dr. Goldgar was formerly the CIO and CTO at the Texas Education Agency, a $27B state agency responsible or over 1200 K12 districts, over 4.6M students and over 500,000 teachers in public and charter schools. In this role he was responsible for operations, contracts, innovation in the IT department. Dr. Goldgar built and managed award-winning organization of over 200 staff, over 80 applications, with a $45M budget for functions including project management, operations, security and data systems. Mr. Goldgar is considered the Father of Texas Student Data System, a state-wide data warehouse and reporting system for all schools.
He has a Ph.D. from the University of Texas and is a graduate of the LBJ School for Public Affairs Executive Leadership in Information Technology Excellence. Dr. Goldgar also has numerous IBM badges in education, blockchain, design thinking and other areas. In 2010, he also received the Center for Digital Government Best of Texas Award for Excellence in Leadership
Dr. Goldgar has also taught multiple courses at multiple higher education colleges and community colleges, led software development at a Fortune 500 aerospace company and worked at several commercial software companies including both startups and one of the largest software companies in the world.
Dr. Goldgar has presented at more than two dozen events, including:
• Texas K12 CTO Council General Session Panel on Artificial Intelligence – 2019
• Tulane University (USA) Tech Day Keynote: Artificial Intelligence - 2017
• Wall Street Journal CIO Journal Interview - 2012
• IBM IMPACT Conference Keynote (as an IBM customer) – 2010