Best of CASE District VI Award
 

Institution: University of North Dakota

Title of entry: Package on Greg Brockman, UND alum and creator of ChatGPT

About this entry: UND Today is the official news source for the University of North Dakota. We cover breaking news, student and alumni success stories, groundbreaking research and storytelling that makes people smile. We also write about what excites people — or makes them nervous. These days, a topic that does both is AI.

In September 2023 Greg Brockman, co-founder of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, visited UND. Why? Because the staff at UND Communications knew Brockman was a North Dakota native and had taken classes here; and as a result, the University invited him.

The visit was fantastically successful, in that Brockman’s chat on stage with the president of UND was attended by hundreds and covered extensively by local and regional media, and Brockman himself talked with UND Today about the influence his N.D. boyhood and classes at UND have had on the direction of his life.

This package consists of a series of stories, including coverage of Brockman’s public talk with the UND president, as well as the follow-up chat with a UND Today reporter that gave readers great insight into a North Dakota favorite son.

Our package also includes a video and transcript of Brockman’s talk with the president. Before Brockman’s appearance, UND Communications sent out multiple advisories alerting media and the public to the event, and including detailed information about the security requirements that would be in place. (Suffice it to say that UND Today writers are not usually escorted into an interview room by a campus police officer.)