Computer News Middle East November 2018

ISSUE 321 | NOVEMBER 2018 WWW.TAHAWULTECH.COM

LINKEDIN CHIEF DATA OFFICER IGOR PERISIC

RAK E-GOV’S SERVICES TRANSFORMATION

ORACLE OPENWORLD 2018

IBM-MAERSK’S BLOCKCHAIN STUMBLING BLOCKS

BT GLOBAL SERVICES CEO BAS BURGER

GARTNER’S TOP TECH TRENDS FOR 2019

INSIDE THE BOX WHY HUAWEI BELIEVES ITS HARDWARE WILL SHAPE THE GLOBAL AI RACE

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY DUBAI PRODUCTION CITY, DCCA

Smart Choices for Digital Infrastructure Digital transformation requires agile, carefully planned IT infrastructure, efficient data access and exchange.

Each of these factors is vital to success.

The challenge is making smart, correct choices in line with performance requirements, without over- or under specifying.

Nexans supports you in making smart choices that will help you build and operate the most efficient and costeffective digital infrastructure to support your business goals.

• • • • •

Flexible, cost-effective bandwidth achitectures Optimised space usage Performance protection and enhancement Faster modular deployment Design through to operational support services

www.nexans.com/LANsystems

Our events

EDITORIAL

Sense and sensibility Welcome to the 321st edition of everyone’s favourite GCC technology monthly, coming to you off the back of the 38th GITEX Technology Week. What do these numbers mean, I hear you ask? Do they represent some sort of milestone? Absolutely not. Not in the slightest.

Alaa Elshimy occupies this CNME cover, and he tells us how last year’s mammoth $13.8 billion R&D investment is thrusting Huawei towards the $100 billion revenue mark, and why it is steering clear of that elusive silver bullet that is Blockchain. Turn to page 28 for more of Alaa’s thoughts.

LinkedIn’s chief data officer Igor Perisic told me where he believes “LinkedIn’s organisations are going wrong in their chief data quest for artificial intelligence (spoiler officer Igor alert - there’s some big no-no’s). He’s Perisic told also undecided if machines will take our jobs, and thinks a lot of businesses me where are aimlessly, hopelessly pursuing he believes AI projects. “Why?” Igor looks to the organisations heavens every day and asks. Imbibe his are going wisdom via the medium of page 20.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Bas wrong in Burger, the CEO of BT Global Services. their quest Bas spoke at the World Economic for artificial Forum earlier this year about the need intelligence.” to “increase trust” in the digital age, and he’s shed more light on that with us. More on page 32.

On page 42 you find out what Gartner expects to go down next year in the tech world. I’m sure we can all agree: some of their predictions will probably happen, some almost certainly won’t. Still, there’s always 2020. Such is life.

Talk to us: E-mail: james.dartnell@ cpimediagroup.com

Our online platforms

tahawultech.com

Our social media

facebook.com/tahawultech

twitter.com/tahawultech

linkedin.com/in/tahawultech

James Dartnell Editor

Contents

Cloud and Managed Services Partner

Transformation and Technology Specialist Partner

ISSUE 321 | NOVEMBER 2018

16

20

ORACLE OPENWORLD 2018

LINKEDIN CHIEF DATA OFFICER IGOR PERISIC

10 Automate, innovate

24

RAK E-GOV'S SERVICES TRANSFORMATION

12

CNME hosted a roundtable discussion in partnership with Cognizant which explored the opportunities and challenges around robotic process automation usage in the enterprise.

Future Enterprise Awards 2018 CNME hosted its first ever Future Enterprise Awards in October at Jumeirah Emirates Towers. We look at the esteemed winners from the event.

28 Huawei's AI edge

32

BT GLOBAL SERVICES CEO BAS BURGER

FOUNDER, CPI MEDIA GROUP Dominic De Sousa (1959-2015)

Huawei Enterprise Middle East’s regional vice president Alaa Elshimy believes the firm has an advantage over global AI competitors - its advanced hardware solutions.

36 Why AI demands responsibility

Microsoft's general manager for AI strategy Ali Dalloul gives his take on why ethical approaches are necessary if the world is to reap the benefits of AI.

38 Lost at sea

Rick Schmitz, CEO of LTO Network, explores the reasons why the IBM-Maersk Blockchain partnership has failed to hit the heights that many predicted.

42 The year ahead

Gartner's vice president and fellow Daryl Plummer sheds light on the technology trends that will have the biggest effect on enterprises and consumers in the next 12 months.

Publication licensed by Dubai Production City, DCCA PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE

Published by

Publishing Director Natasha Pendleton natasha.pendleton@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9139

Sales Manager Nasir Bazaz nasir.bazaz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9147

Online Editor Adelle Geronimo adelle.geronimo@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9135

DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developer Jefferson de Joya Abbas Madh

ADVERTISING Group Sales Director Kausar Syed kausar.syed@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9138

EDITORIAL Managing Editor Michael Jabri-Pickett mjp@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9158

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN Senior Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5680

Photographers Charls Thomas Maksym Poriechkin

Business Development Manager Youssef Hariz youssef.hariz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9111

Editor James Dartnell james.dartnell@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9153

Designer Mhar Delaben marlou.delaben@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9156

Senior Sales Manager Sabita Miranda sabita.miranda@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9128

Deputy Editor Glesni Holland glesni.holland@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9134

Operations Manager Shweta Santosh shweta.santosh@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9107

webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100

Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Regional partner of

Printed by Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing Š Copyright 2018 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

NEWS

IBM ACQUIRES RED HAT IN $34 BILLION DEAL

I

BM has announced that it has acquired the open source cloud software firm for approximately $34 billion.

Upon closing of the acquisition, Red Hat will join IBM’s Hybrid Cloud team as a distinct unit, preserving the independence and neutrality of Red Hat’s open source development

heritage and commitment. Red Hat will continue to be led by Jim Whitehurst and Red Hat’s current management team. Whitehurst also will join IBM’s senior management team and report to Rometty. IBM intends to maintain Red Hat’s headquarters, facilities, brands and practices.

“The acquisition of Red Hat is a

game-changer,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and CEO. “It changes everything about the cloud market. IBM will become the world’s number one hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses.

IBM also says it will remain committed to Red Hat’s open governance, open source contributions, participation in the open source community and development model, and fostering its widespread developer ecosystem.

IBM and Red Hat also will continue to build and enhance Red Hat partnerships, including those with major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba and more, in addition to the IBM Cloud.

DU TO BUILD “FIRST” BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORM AS-A-SERVICE IN UAE Du is set to will build the “first” Blockchain-Platform-as-a-Service in UAE (BPaaS) in partnership with ConsenSys, to build decentralised applications and offer an integrated set of solutions for the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem.

BPaaS is a cloud-native blockchain infrastructure that can provision private blockchain networks with a “high level” of customisation, support multiple consensus algorithms with monitoring, managing capabilities and smart contract capabilities on the Ethereum blockchain, and will support multiple blockchain frameworks in the near future.

BPaaS offers a shared environment for du clients to host their blockchainbased POCs and production systems.

This includes shared infrastructure and document management.

6

NOVEMBER 2018

“In conjunction with ConsenSys, du will play a leading role in leveraging emerging technology to contribute to business growth and the realisation of the Dubai Blockchain Strategy,” said Jihad Taraya, vice president, business development and partnerships, new business and innovation, du. “As

a founding member of the Global Blockchain Council, du has been active in expanding the implementation of blockchain technology to improve the everyday life of the citizens of Dubai and this prestigious partnership further acknowledges the government of Dubai’s pioneering Blockchain initiatives.” www.tahawultech.com

UAE BANS ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, WITCHCRAFT SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

T

he UAE National Media Council, has announced an official advertising guide which bans the use of social media advertising of alcohol and tobacco.

The new advertising guide refers to electronic advertisements in social media, stressing that all those who

carry out advertising activities on a commercial basis are required to obtain a prior license from the council provided, with the account holder being the primary person responsible for the content of the account in question.

According to the guide, there needs to be a clear disclosure “in case there is any financial or in-kind payment by the issuing authority for publications or articles published on social media, websites or blogs.”

The new policies stipulate that advertisements should appear

distinctive and independent from editorial and information material and it should be clearly disclosed whether the advert is a paid-for promotion.

The regulations also state that the use of hashtags – such as #ad or #paid_ad – are not to be “accompanied by many hashtags in such a way that they are hard to see.”

“Advertising for alcohol, narcotics and tobacco in all its forms is prohibited and prior approval should be sought from concerned authorities with regard to advertisements that relate to health, education and real estate,” said the guidelines.

Any advertising for “witchcraft, sorcery and astrology” is also not allowed, according to the NMC.

SMART DUBAI, IBM LAUNCH FIRST GOVERNMENT BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORM IN UAE

Smart Dubai and IBM have announced the launch of the Dubai Blockchain Platform, the first government-endorsed blockchain platform as-a-service in the UAE. www.tahawultech.com

Delivered through an IBM Cloud environment and built locally in the UAE, the platform will serve as a stepping stone for organisations in the UAE and globally to transition their blockchain testing and development into full-production.

It will also digitise applicable government processes and citizen services.

As part of the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, for which IBM is the official Blockchain Strategic Partner, Dubai has seen the launch of various

blockchain applications in a number of government entities across different sectors, including roads and transport, energy, healthcare and education.

The Dubai Pay Blockchain Settlement and Reconciliation System will be one of the first projects to migrate onto the Dubai Blockchain Platform. Through this service, a process that used to take entities approximately 45 days to reconcile and settle payments with other government entities, banks and financial institutions, is now reduced to real-time.

Through the collaboration with IBM, Smart Dubai aims to run all applicable government transactions on blockchain and make Dubai a global benchmark for city-wide blockchain implementation.

NOVEMBER 2018

7

NEWS

HALF OF UAE DATA DARK: VERITAS

V

eritas Technologies has unveiled the findings of its 2018 UAE Databerg Report, which underlines that ‘dark’ data – whose value has not yet been identified – accounts for the majority

of data (48%) that is stored and processed by organisations in the UAE. The findings highlight the vast and as-yet-untapped potential to leverage the prevalence of dark data to drive transformational growth across the region.

MICROSOFT, CLOUD SERVICES TO CREATE 55,000 JOBS IN UAE BY 2022

Microsoft’s technology ecosystem and the growing popularity of cloud services will create more than 55,000 jobs in the United Arab Emirates by the end of 2022, according to new research by IDC. 8

NOVEMBER 2018

The study analyses the impact of ICT, cloud services, and the Microsoft ecosystem on the UAE economy between 2017 and 2022.

The research shows that

One hundred respondents in the UAE covering key sectors were surveyed for the report on enterprise data management.

The survey highlights that while dark data accounts for 48% – compared to 52% globally – organisations in the UAE are taking more control of data.

Clean data – which has been tagged or classified – has more than doubled from 8% in 2016 and now stands at 19%, which has led to a significant reduction in Redundant, Obsolete or Trivial (ROT) data has decreased from 43% to 33% in the past two years.

In other key findings, the report points out that public sector entities carry the most burden with 42% redundant data, followed by industry (36%), finance (33%) and utilities (30%).

implementation of nationwide initiatives such as UAE Vision 2021 and Smart Dubai – and other initiatives focused on tourism, healthcare, transportation and education – have led to a rise in IT spending and employment.

IDC predicts spending on public cloud services in the UAE will almost quadruple over the next five years, from AED 439 million in 2017 to AED 1.51 billion in 2022. Between the end of 2017 and the end of 2022, adoption of cloud services will create nearly 31,650 new jobs (net) and the Microsoft technology ecosystem will add 23,800 jobs (net) for a total of 55,450 in net job creation.

The Microsoft ecosystem – the companies that sell, service, deploy, or otherwise work with Microsoft products – supported more than 71,250 workers in 2017.

The ecosystem itself is a prolific generator of downstream revenues, accounting for AED10.16 for every AED 1 that Microsoft produces, according to IDC estimates.

In March, Microsoft announced that it would open dedicated cloud data centres in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to serve customers across the Middle East and Africa. www.tahawultech.com

Injazat-Elm MoU

NEWS

INJAZAT AND ELM JOIN FORCES Injazat Data Systems has signed an MoU with Saudi Arabia-based Elm at GITEX.

M

ubadala-owned Injazat Data Systems, a “regional market leader” in IT, data centre, and managed services, announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Saudi Arabia-based Elm, a provider of digital solutions, to explore joint business opportunities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and potentially other markets.

The agreement was signed on the sidelines of GITEX Technology Week 2018, where Injazat showcased its portfolio of services.

Injazat CEO Khaled Al Melhi said, “Injazat prides itself on being a regional market leader in information technology and digital services.

Our objective is to enable clients to effectively focus on their core business by providing the highest standards of technology expertise they need. Part of our success stems from the partnerships that we have formed for over 13 years. Elm, with its high levels of expertise, enjoys strong relationships with several major government and private institutions, which is why the platform for information exchange between Injazat and Elm that will stem from this MoU will further advance our drive of www.tahawultech.com

comprehensive digital transformation in the region.”

The agreement is also in line with Elm’s new strategy to expand its operations in the region, as it aims through its partnerships with pioneering regional business technology companies, to create services that will enable the public and private sectors to benefit from the latest digital developments.

Elm CEO, Dr. Abdulrahman bin Saad Al Jadhai said, “We are constantly developing innovative programmes to enhance our expertise in providing leading digital services to the public and private sectors in Saudi Arabia and the MENA region, which are in line with our efforts to advance digital transformation. This agreement with Injazat, which has vast experience in the technology market within the emirates, will create new opportunities to provide advanced services on a regional level.

Injazat CEO Khaled Al Melhi

NOVEMBER 2018

9

EVENTS

Cognizant Roundtable

IDC’s software research director for the Middle East and Africa Megha Kumar

AUTOMATE, INNOVATE

CNME recently hosted a roundtable discussion in partnership with Cognizant that explored how the Middle East can deliver the smooth integration of robotic process automation into the enterprise.

R

obot process automation is a stream of code that mimics human action at the software presentation layer, and can enter, retrieve, and manipulate data. RPA automates tasks that regularly happen, and is essentially clicking ‘approve’ repeatedly. Arguably the biggest benefit of RPA will be its ability to allow human workers to focus on ‘thinking’ rather than on iterative processes.

A selection of industries are ripe for RPA usage. Finance in particular has a whole host of processes that can be disrupted, including loan, credit card and mortgage applications, and claims processing.

10

NOVEMBER 2018

Healthcare, meanwhile, has potential uses in claims, care and medical records management. Retail has several uses, including store planning, order processing and inventory management.

Mashreq and Union Insurance are two examples of local organisations that have already put RPA to good use, ensuring customers can easily open bank accounts and apply for insurance, according to IDC’s software research director for the Middle East and Africa Megha Kumar, who got the day’s sessions underway.

“We’re suddenly hearing a lot about how humanoids are becoming part of our ecosystem, with man and

machine working together,” she said.

“Organisations want to become less error-prone by automating repetitive tasks. RPA is different from business process management and has to be rule-based. You need to give a system structured data to conduct large-volume, simple, repetitive tasks. Simplicity will become a major evaluation criteria.

“RPA is not AI, but there’s nothing wrong with RPA being rule-based and doing what it’s supposed to. Think about what you can automate and what you can streamline.”

Cognizant’s CTO for digital operations, Suresh Venugopal, followed Kumar by putting into www.tahawultech.com

Cognizant’s CTO for digital operations, Suresh Venugopal

context the potential for change as a result of RPA. “According to Forrester, there will be 4 million robots doing office, admin, sales and customer service related tasks by 2021,” he said. “As much as 60% of occupations could have 30% or more of their tasks automated.”

He went on to stress the importance of human employees working closely with bots in order to ensure the effective management of RPA. “Standard operating procedures are written for humans to consume, so RPA will require continuous enablement,” he said. “RPA is about well defined rulesets. When a machine does these things, it needs continuous training. Bots are indifferent to context, and how we engineer them will make them contextual. They need to be properly engineered.

When we automate processes, we have to understand that there’s nobody monitoring them. After three years, human employees will have a tendency to forget the original process before it was automated. You need to keep some human intelligence in the process.

“If there are 500 bots working in your organisation, you need a good understanding of their policies. RPA is often sold to a business owner or line of business head, and then you find out that some process or system has changed, so it needs upfront planning. www.tahawultech.com

Automation is painted as purely eliminating effort, but it’s also how you take customer experiences to the next level.

It needs IT and business to be involved to ensure its success.”

Venugopal went on to highlight global use cases that have shown just how RPA can deliver tangible cost savings and operational efficiencies.

“An American multinational investment bank has made $10m in savings per year, created 110

resources and handled 4 million requests per year through RPA,” he said. “A global provider of insurance products has enabled 65% of registration requests to be automated, while an American healthcare firm has delivered a 15x reduction in claims inventory and made $3 million in compliance savings.”

Cognizant’s senior director for digital operations,Varun Gupta, rounded off the event’s presentations by exploring the key criteria for RPA success. “There are several ways you can measure its benefits, and organisations need to define what they hope to achieve,” he said. “Is it how you measure processes? Whether you’ve decreased turnaround times? Or is it how many customers you’ve onboarded on digital channels? You need to measure these metrics.

Often, automation is painted as purely eliminating effort, but it’s also how you can take customer experiences to the next level. Don’t take a solution and ask what the problem is. Take a problem and ask what the solution is. When all you have is a hammer, sometimes everything can look like a nail.

“Ultimately, it’s about getting to customers faster, and saving them pressing this and that button. It’s about reimagining processes with a human-centric element.”

NOVEMBER 2018

11

EVENTS

Future Enterprise Awards

INTO THE FUTURE C

PI Media Group and CNME hosted the inaugural Future Enterprise Awards on Sunday 14th October, concluding the first day of GITEX Technology Week 2018.

Hosted at Jumeirah Emirates Towers and replacing the rebranded annual ICT Achievement Awards – which last year hosted its eight edition – the Future Enterprise Awards honoured the CIO’s and CEO’s that have had the most transformative effect in the region’s enterprises.

12

NOVEMBER 2018

The awards represent one of the biggest events in the Middle East’s technology industry calendar, and are widely recognised as the go-to platform for honouring technology success.

The awards have several main criteria for success: the ways organisations have already proven themselves to be innovative adopters of technology, and the forward-thinking roadmaps they have built that will ensure their future success and transformation.

Smart Dubai scooped the Government Innovator of the Year

award, which was collected by the organisation’s CEO Wesam Lootah, while Dubai Holding’s Neil Menezes walked away with the CIO of the year title.

Dell EMC scooped the Digital Transformation Vendor of the Year award, while Huawei took home the AI Vendor of the Year prize. In total, the awards honoured winners across 24 categories.

CPI Media Group and CNME would like to congratulate all award winners and pay a big thank you to our sponsors and guests for delivering such a fantastic evening.

www.tahawultech.com

Mohammed Amin, senior vice president, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Dell EMC

Best innovator in Commercial Banking

Best Innovator in Healthcare

National Bank of Fujairah

Medcare

Editor's Choice

CNME editor James Dartnell

www.tahawultech.com

RAK e-Gov

NOVEMBER 2018

13

EVENTS

Future Enterprise Awards

Best Innovator in Leisure & Tourism

Best Innovator in Oil & Gas

Best Innovator in Power & Utilities

Emaar Entertainment

Fluor

GE Power

Best Startup Innovator

AI Vendor of the Year

Best Startup Accelerator/ Incubator

ArabianChain

Huawei

Badir

Enterprise Mobility Vendor of the Year

CIO of the Year

Citrix

Neil Menezes, Dubai Holding

14

NOVEMBER 2018

Editor's choice

Digital Transformation Vendor of the Year

RAK e-Gov

Dell EMC

Software Vendor of the Ye Veritas

www.tahawultech.com

Best Innovator in Government

Best Innovator in Telecoms

Best Startup Accelerator/Incubator

Smart Dubai

Virgin Mobile MEA

Badir

ear

Systems Integrator of the Year

Cloud Vendor of the Year

GBM

iCloud Solutions

Best Innovator in e-commerce

Best Innovator in Transport & Logistics

Bayt.com

RTA Dubai

Managed Services Vendor of the Year

Hardware Vendor of the year

Editor's choice

Injazat Data Systems

Lenovo

Focus Softnet

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

15

FEATURE

Oracle OpenWorld 2018

"COMPLETELY AUTOMATED, COMPLETELY AUTONOMOUS" Daniel Bardsley reports from Oracle OpenWorld 2018 in San Francisco, where the cloud and infrastructure giant spotlighted the ways it will embed artificial intelligence in its broad product suite.

O

racle is strengthening its cloud data centre facilities in the UAE as it launches its newgeneration cloud offering, the company’s executive chairman, Larry Ellison, has announced.

Ellison, also the firm’s famed chief technology officer, co-founder and former CEO, revealed the plan during his keynote address. “We agreed to add something in the UAE just yesterday,” Ellison said day one of the conference, in reference to the company’s global network of data centres capable of serving its Generation 2 Cloud.

In 2016, Oracle announced its intention to build a cloud data centre in Abu Dhabi, and in February 2018 the company told CNME that the facility – the company’s 29th in the world – 16

NOVEMBER 2018

would launch by August, a move aimed at helping it to better serve cloud customers across the UAE. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, Oracle is looking for heavy growth in its cloud revenues with the launch of its Generation 2 Cloud, which comes at a time when legacy operations linked to software and hardware offer more limited prospects for expansion.

Ellison said Oracle’s newgeneration cloud offering would provide better security thanks to machine learning, artificial intelligence and the way it was structured. Threats cannot enter, he said, and if they do, are unable to spread. “We use the latest artificial intelligence machine learning technology to build autonomous robots to seek and destroy threats. It’s got to be

completely automated, completely autonomous,” Ellison said. “We’ll never put our cloud computer code in the same computer that has customer data. That [would] create an incredible vulnerability to your cloud computer system.”

With Autonomous Database - the “world-first, self-driving” platform - as its centrepiece, Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud is now on sale and available in the public cloud, while Ellison said it would be available in 2019 with the company’s Cloud at Customer product.

Oracle claims its Autonomous Database requires no human input and can self-patch. Ellison said it had a performance advantage and significant cost savings over offerings from Amazon Web Services, which he repeatedly www.tahawultech.com

You won’t have to deal with, ‘Who are you?

What’s your problem?’ again.

compared unfavourably to Oracle’s product during his presentation.

Oracle coCEO Mark Hurd, meanwhile, predicted that the growth of artificial intelligence would be so central to digital technology that by 2025 AI will be included in all cloud applications.

Hurd also forecast that by the same year, 85% of interactions between companies and their customers would be automated.

“You won’t have to deal with, ‘Who are you? What’s your problem?’ again,” he said, adding www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

17

FEATURE

Oracle OpenWorld 2018

that while automation would replace some jobs, it would also create new ones. “With AI-enabled healthcare technology, as you [move] to these healthcare devices, someone will have to ensure that they are working properly. The majority of jobs, by the time you get to 2025, they haven’t been invented. I believe there will be more people in IT working on a different set of tasks.”

There will be new types of data professionals, robot scientists and smart city technology designers, to give a few examples, he said.

AI changes what Hurd described as the productivity equation, freeing up employees from more mundane tasks and enabling companies to focus on functions with greater creativity or strategic significance.

“There’s a chance for us to flip what’s in the IT budgets – most of it is maintenance – and flip these budgets into innovation,” he said.

“We see AI as a core feature that will get embedded into virtually every solution, every application.

Automation will reduce the time to do tasks that are impossible for humans to do today. The amount of data that companies have is beyond the ability of the most sophisticated data scientist to take advantage of. It’s very difficult to harness that information … not so with AI.” Hurd made his address soon after it was announced that Oracle had acquired DataFox, a San Francisco-headquartered company with a cloud-based AI data engine that provides company-level data useful in decision-making.

The cloud market is, said Hurd, “moving faster than predicted”, with 15 percent of United States data centres having shut last year as functions were moved over to the cloud.

18

NOVEMBER 2018

Oracle has been outpaced by some competitors in the cloud, but hopes its Generation 2 Cloud and, linked to it, its Autonomous Database, will help it to close the gap to the likes of AWS. “Cloud is accelerating; these data centres are shifting from companies to the core cloud providers,” said Hurd.

Oracle’s chief corporate architect Edward Screven highlighted how machine learning and AI will shift the balance against cyber-attackers by offering greater

Automation will reduce the time to do tasks that are impossible for humans to do today.

assistance to cyber defence efforts, suggesting that technology would lead to a decisive shift in favour of defence.

However, he did warn that major companies could find themselves in the cross-hairs of geopolitical struggles in cyberspace. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence is a more effective tool for defence than offence,” Screven said in a session moderated by Hurd. “Because it’s been easier to automate attacks, the spread out bunker [form of defence] doesn’t work. But if you have

a few strongholds you’ve got management control. I think it’s far, far more secure.”

Screven has held securityrelated roles at Oracle for two decades and said that, over that time, the nature of the security threat had evolved beyond recognition. Where it used to be a case of fending off it unsophisticated phishing emails sent out by lone, poorly funded attackers, today the danger comes from well-funded criminal organisations or state-sponsored operations.

“Their motives are sometimes financial, sometimes political. Their motivations are sometimes to affect companies that are important,” said Screven. “We’ve had to build new technology and figure out ways to respond that aren’t manual, that don’t have long think times.”

Speaking alongside Screven, Jeh Johnson, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017, said that “cyberspace is really the new battlespace”. “We need to have as an international priority the defence in cyberspace,” he said, adding that more use should be made of publicprivate partnerships in the defence of critical infrastructure. In terms of wider security issues, Johnson, a former general counsel at the US Department of Defense, said that the western world had done a good job of dealing with terrorist threats from overseas. However, he said a key vulnerability that was yet to be dealt with was the homegrown terrorism threat coming from individuals radicalised on the internet. He described such actors as being “increasingly tenacious and aggressive”. “We struggle to keep up. We’ve yet to turn that corner.” he said. www.tahawultech.com

REDEFINING technology transformation

+971 4 440 9100

@TahawulTech

info@cpimediagroup.com

www.tahawultech.com

facebook.com/tahawultech

twitter.com/tahawultech

linkedin.com/in/tahawultech

FEATURE

Igor Perisic, LinkedIn

HOW LINKEDIN IS CONNECTING THE GLOBAL WORKFORCE WITH AI LinkedIn’s chief data officer and vice president of engineering Igor Perisic tells CNME how he believes organisations can “do AI”, why he is undecided if machines will supplant humans in the workplace and how data is helping the world - and LinkedIn’s 562 million users - to get hired.

B

oasting 562 million members and an estimated 110 million monthly active users, LinkedIn needs no introduction as the world’s go-to professional network.

As LinkedIn’s chief data officer and vice president of engineering, Igor Perisic is aiming to set a benchmark for a role that is still in its infancy within the majority of global enterprises. “It goes without saying that corporations are generating a lot 20

NOVEMBER 2018

of data,” he says. “Where it sits in the organisation doesn’t really matter, but it just needs the organisation to pay attention to it. Some organisations are doing lots with their data, and others aren’t doing as much. They need to be principled about what data is and what it isn’t.”

Put simply, Perisic’s role is to create information from otherwise idle data in order to help people get hired. However, the unavoidable irony of technology-induced job losses

lingers on the horizon. “It’s really hard to predict where the edge will be with unemployment,” he says. “I’m agnostic to be honest. The World Economic Forum believes AI will be a positive in creating jobs, but I have no way to say yes or no. I think it will be a positive, but we need to be careful that the rich don’t get richer and the poor poorer.”

The second time Perisic has visited the Middle East, he is “hugely excited” to explore opportunities www.tahawultech.com

If a system has a trillion questions and answers built in, it’s brilliant. But is a pure matching of questions and answers truly intelligent?

in Dubai. “I’m amazed by its international aspect,” he says. “There are so many different cultures, which is not as common in the US and Europe. We want to get a better feeling for what people are doing here, and part of that means we’ve been spending time with Microsoft.” The firm was acquired by the software giant for $26.2 billion in 2016, and Perisic has been working closely with the Redmond firm both on his regional visit and back in the United States. “Microsoft benefits us on multiple fronts,” he says. “Their AI research is very advanced, and we can make use of the best practices they use in building AI models.”

In simple terms, Perisic has a profound purpose - to put information to effective use to increase global employment opportunities.

“LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunities for every member of the global workforce, and we’re using data to pursue that vision,” he says. “Networks are a fundamental part of a professional career, www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

21

FEATURE

Igor Perisic, LinkedIn

and it’s about about using those networks to make decisions to help find what is what needed for a job.

We’re using AI to analyse trends like the effect of migration on the labour market and job transitions.

We collaborate with institutions to get anonymous data that helps us with that. We want to understand patterns in data to create economic opportunities for our members.”

As organisations across the world grapple with how to put their data to effective use - Veritas estimates that as much as 81% of UAE enterprise data is currently “dark” - the quest to make sense of artificial intelligence is swiftly gathering pace. To many, the concept remains a misunderstood buzzword, and Perisic believes that many organisations have got ahead of themselves in their quest to use intelligent machines in the comprehension of data.

He is keen to dispel myths around AI, and to ensure that Middle East organisations don’t fall victim to myopic, aimless strategies that could prove fruitless. “Some individuals have a perception that AI is just an algorithm space and deep neural networks, but AI success actually has three main components: data, a goal that you want to achieve and algorithms,” he says. “If people want to ‘do AI’, they need to assess all three things. They’re all equally important.

If you want to ‘do AI’, you can’t do it without data. AI is meant to be a solution that helps you achieve goals, but you could get it wrong if you have the wrong goal to begin with. People end up picking up what seems nicest at the time but that doesn’t always make sense.

“An example of intelligent AI would be helping me to think of things I can do as a new visitor to Dubai. Putting 22

NOVEMBER 2018

It’s really hard to predict where the edge will be with AI and unemployment.

I’m agnostic to be honest.

AI into the context of myself, the business activity here is suggesting things that I would like based on my preferences, and filtering out the tonnes of other options.”

Global excitement around AI has been incessant over the last two years, but Perisic is determined to keep his feet firmly on the ground around what can be achieved in terms of autonomous, intelligent machines being able to mimic the human thought process. “AI, fundamentally, needs code or algorithms, and they provide intelligent answers,” he says. “People misinterpret that as consciousness. If you imagine a ‘dumb’ system that has a trillion questions and answers built in, for all intents and purposes, it’s www.tahawultech.com

undeniably brilliant. But is a pure matching of questions and answers truly intelligent? It’s like the Turing test. It doesn’t mean that you’ve built AI that can cook eggs and do things autonomously. Still, with the compute power that we have, we can build more and more intelligence.”

He even goes one step further, saying that delivering AI that is capable of replicating human thought processes is a nigh on unachievable feat. “I don’t believe autonomous AI will ever exist,” he says. “You and I operate on multiple levels in our brain. We can deal with that. I have a hard time believing that with current models we could deliver such a system that can operate in the same way.” www.tahawultech.com

He does, however, believe that AI will be a crucial tool in the ability to combat some of the most pressing issues facing mother earth, as well as transforming humanity’s economic output in the long-term. “The world will be much more efficient in way it uses resources as a result of AI,” he says. “Around 30 years ago, cars had virtually no electronic components, but now that’s completely different.

In 30 years’ time, I believe we’ll be much more efficient around climate change. Goods and power will be managed more efficiently, all through AI. I also believe the world of work will be more interesting. A lot of people are creating insights for data, and with AI can you dig in much more and be more strategic. It will be interesting to see how we can push that.”

The United Nations estimates that 68% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050, and this predicted rise will inevitably test cities’ abilities to streamline transport, utilities and public services, as well as making them more inhabitable for citizens. The effective use of information will be key in building the metropolis of the future, but identifying specific goals must be the top priority of governments, according to Perisic. “We need to define what the ‘happiest city’ is first before we attempt to build it,” he says. “Does it mean taking the quickest possible route to work? A smart city sounds nice, but it’s based on machines that collect mathematical functions, and the translation of objective functions to a goal is key. If you don’t have this sorted, the algorithm is potentially the least important element. You need to crawl before you run, and if you don’t it could lead you to dead ends. Start off with simplicity and and then get more complex.”

Perisic adds that building a smart city that satisfies the needs of the majority is not only unlikely, but is also dependent on culture and geography.

“In Switzerland, people use public transport like there’s no tomorrow,” he says. “The US doesn’t as much, so there’s a different emphasis on how they build cities. In Dublin, it’s getting harder and harder to get in and out of the city centre because of traffic.

The city probably wasn’t built from a transport point of view. Sometimes, it’s a really hard thing to balance, and needs sensibility. In London, for example, you pay extra tax for going into high congestion zones.”

Recent PwC research has claimed that AI will contribute as much as $96 billion a year to the UAE’s GDP (13.6%), and $135 billion a year (12.4%) to that of Saudi Arabia by 2030. Perisic believes the figures invite further questioning, but could be easily justified. “The McKinsey Global Institute believes that AI could add $6 trillion a year to the global economy, which is a similar prediction,”he says. “They’re significant numbers, and it would be interesting to see the new business models and specific ways PwC believes things can be optimised through AI.” Perisic believes the Middle East region is fertile ground for the disruptive, effective use of data and AI. “The Middle East should be prioritising AI,” he says. “There are plenty of opportunities to use data from smart cities and smart grids. I still find it hard to believe that countries across the world haven’t rolled out smart traffic lights. A lack of data could be a reason as to why.

If you don’t have data at the right granularity, you can’t act upon it in some cases.”

NOVEMBER 2018

23

FEATURE

RAK e-Gov

AT YOUR SERVICE

Compelled to deliver the best possible digital services and customer experience to its citizens, the Electronic Government Authority of Ras Al Khaimah partnered with Avaya to create a unified platform that has transformed a range of government services.

S

upporting technology infrastructure of over 20 government departments, the Electronic Government Authority of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK e-Gov) is the cornerstone of the emirate’s digital transformation ambitions. These departments interconnect through RAK e-Gov’s centralised ERP application and data centre, with RAK e-Gov’s IT team serving all these entities.

They include the RAK Municipality Department, RAK Land Department and the Public Works and Services Department. “These departments all depend on us on a day-to-day basis,” says Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Sayyah, general manager of the Electronic Government Authority of Ras Al Khaimah. “We support their IT needs and procurement, and evaluate any solution based on their requirements.”

According to Al Sayyah, RAK e-Gov is determined to transform government services over the next three years, with the aim of delivering an enhanced citizen experience underpinning all of its projects.

“We want to build a digital Ras Al 24

NOVEMBER 2018

Khaimah,” he says. “Our aim is to deliver ease of use for all citizens, and to make their lives easier by ensuring they can access services through their smartphones instead of coming to physical government buildings.”

RAK e-Gov has always been committed to using the most reliable technology products and standards, and began its partnership with Avaya over eight years ago by using the firm’s analogue IP telephony products, which were limited to just two government departments. “We chose to partner with Avaya because they’re an old and trusted name in telecoms,” Al Sayyah says. “So many Fortune 500 companies use them, and they consistently have a really good ranking in Gartner’s magic quadrants.

We evaluated other competitors and we found that Avaya provided the most cost-effective solution.”

Although RAK e-Gov had enjoyed a successful relationship with the Avaya, it felt compelled to migrate its existing call centres, which were siloed across government departments, into a centralised system, with the aim of delivering more effective information

reporting, voice recording and a more efficient call management system.

RAK e-Gov opted to move to Avaya’s Equinox Team Engagement solution for video conferencing.

“One of the first” regional organisations to use Equinox, RAK e-Gov was sold on the solution’s benefits after visiting Avaya’s Dubai Executive Briefing Centre (EBC) - a hub based at the firm’s regional headquarters which showcases innovation opportunities. Avaya’s EBC is a regularly updated with new solutions, and also has bases in New York, London and its Santa Clara global HQ.

We want to build a digital Ras Al Khaimah.

www.tahawultech.com

Avaya’s engineering team conducted necessary testing procedures during periods with lower user demand, and after thorough testing, which took approximately two months, they went live with the upgrade and “shut down” the old systems they had been using.

“The migration was very smooth,” Al Sayyah says. “Although we had been running on old systems, we successfully merged all independent units into a centralised system. End users weren’t at all disturbed, and it hasn’t had any lasting effect on the way they work. Having a centralised system allows licenses to be managed centrally, and has also granted us high availability. Avaya helped us to build parallel licenses to use in the new system.”

The changes have already had a significant effect on RAK Courts and Public

Prosecutions departments, the emirate’s judiciary bodies. The changes now allow all applicable cases to be conducted through Avaya’s video conferencing and telephony system. Avaya’s call recording feature now allows the easier submission of evidence, with recorded calls from claimants being admissible

in court cases, meaning they do not always have to be physically present in a courtroom. This connection also runs between Ras Al Khaimah’s central jail and court rooms, meaning claimants don’t have to come face to face with those who have allegedly committed offences against them.

“This keeps witnesses anonymous in some cases,” Al Sayyah says. “This can help to encourage a safer society and could potentially reduce crime rates. Courts used to bring victims to a physical place, but this video conferencing system eliminates that necessity.”

Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Sayyah, general manager of the Electronic Government Authority of Ras Al Khaimah

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

25

FEATURE

RAK e-Gov

RAK e-Gov has also applied the technology to deliver another innovative public service - a legal marriage procedure that can be completed via video conference.

The RAK Municipality Department, meanwhile, has been another organisation to have benefited from the changes. Processing times have been reduced by allowing engineers and consultants to transmit changes to documents through Avaya’s platform, reducing the need for them to physically travel to its offices.

RAK e-Gov now also has a virtual platform to conduct job interviews across departments, with end users only needing an internet connection and device. “We are dependent on talent from a range of countries, and applicants are not always able to be here in person,” Al Sayyah says.

“Having this knowledge transfer ability is a huge value add.”

Al Sayyah has also been delighted with the support offered by technology implementation partner Visiontech, an Avaya Diamond Partner and systems integration 26

NOVEMBER 2018

specialist. “It’s very important to have a supporting partner,” Al Sayyah says. “Any issue with our IP telephony or video conferencing is easily resolved, and this is crucial. If these systems went down it would have a significant impact on our operation. Visiontech were very flexible in the way they delivered support, and don’t just do things by the book. They offered any kind of support we needed in terms of

We’ve been so impressed with how Avaya’s technology has helped us to transform.

licenses, and have gone the extra mile to make themselves available to us throughout the upgrade process.”

Al Sayyah has been extremely satisfied with the products and services delivered by Avaya, and has been convinced to continue partnering with the firm in the long run. “We always want to explore innovative technologies, and to see how Avaya can help us introduce innovative solutions to our environment,” Al Sayyah says.

“In future, we’ll be exploring artificial intelligence and Blockchain and looking for ways that we can deliver an enhanced customer experience to the citizens of Ras Al Khaimah. Avaya has a lot of solutions in the contact centre range, and we’re looking to test them in our environment and see how we can put them to effective use. We hadn’t initially intended to have so many of Avaya’s systems beyond its IP telephony products, but we’ve been so impressed with how their technology has helped us to transform, that our partnership has continued to grow.” www.tahawultech.com

COVER FEATURE

Huawei

HUAWEI: WE HAVE THE AI EDGE With Huawei edging closer to the $100 billion revenue mark, vice president and managing director of the Middle East enterprise business group, Alaa Elshimy, tells CNME why the firm has the edge over its AI competitors, why it is not investing in Blockchain - for now - and why the United Nations could decide what machines should and shouldn’t do.

I

n the intensifying race to build autonomous, intelligent machines, Huawei believes it has sharpened its competitive edge in beating the world’s other technology giants.

“I haven’t seen anyone so far from an ICT point of view that has come up with specific set of products that will make AI happen,” Alaa Elshimy, Huawei enterprise business group’s vice president and managing director for the Middle East, says.

“We’ll differentiate ourselves in AI through our hardware. We’re an infrastructure company and we’re very clear on that. When Microsoft 28

NOVEMBER 2018

presents its AI solutions, 90% of what I’ve seen is more on the software side of things and is about developing AI for business processes.”

Elshimy also believes that while the world’s biggest technology companies have made progress in embedding AI in their software, they have failed to reciprocate in terms of their hardware. “Some of them are not prioritising hardware enough in the delivery of AI, including some of the biggest ERP and database players,” he says. I don’t see there being competition to us in the AI infrastructure space today.”

Another area in which Huawei is going against the grain is its approach towards Blockchain - or lack of one. While the tech industry has incessantly sold the prospect of the distributed ledger technology being as transformative as the internet, Huawei is steering clear, for now at least. “We are not investing in Blockchain software as of now, it is more of an ecosystem play for Huawei,” he says. “In my view, I see Blockchain as a pure software play. We will have Blockchain services in our cloud eventually, but we don’t invest in Blockchain per se. It could be www.tahawultech.com

I don’t see there being competition to us in the AI infrastructure space today.

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

29

COVER FEATURE

Huawei

added to our strategy as we go, but we believe in focusing in what we’re good at, and we can’t try to do everything at once. We want to focus purely on ICT infrastructure and cloud services.”

Huawei’s 2017 revenue totalled a jaw-dropping $92.5 billion across its carrier, consumer and enterprise business groups, with the latter accounting for 9.1%, or $8.4 billion, of the firm’s global business, and Elshimy believes the firm is edging ever closer to hitting what represents a significant milestone.

“We’re obviously working hard to hit the $100 billion mark,” Elshimy says. “In all humbleness, I’m almost sure we’ll hit that target this year.

If it happens, we have to celebrate it, as it positions us as the clear number one for ICT players. It also puts more responsibility on the organisation to keep growing.

It means the company vision is correct, the strategy is right, and that we need to continue to deliver and drive the company forward in the same direction. We have a responsibility to bring value.”

Elshimy attributes a large portion of the firm’s success to its relentless pursuit of R&D, which he says has continually delivered world-firsts in technology. “Huawei spent $13.8 billion on R&D in 2017,” he says. “We’re the first to have introduced a 32-core Intel-based server, the first to bring an AI chipset to a camera and the first to bring full-stack, AI-powered intelligent computing for the mobile data centre. We’re clear that we want to be number one, and know have had come from behind to be in that position. The ecosystem is so important, and goes across everything we do. We’re working 30

NOVEMBER 2018

with vertical players, and that’s a key pillar of our strategy.”

As well as launching a $140 million global AI education initiative - which will help Huawei collaborate with developers, partners, universities and research institutions - Huawei recently launched its AI Ascend chipset series, which Elshimy believes represents a significant step in Huawei’s bid to build a hardware platform that can fulfill

We are not investing in Blockchain software as of now.

AI ambitions for customers of various sizes. “If you need to run algorithms for certain applications, you need a chipset and the infrastructure to run in the best possible way,” he says. “This is our key differentiator. We’re the only one to deliver the entire stack from a computing point of view, and we deliver this through our Ascend chipset and neural networks. No one else has that today.”

He adds that Huawei has already shown how the chipset can provide tangible results across a range of major verticals. “We’re building use cases for different industries, and I haven’t seen

anyone doing anything similar to that,” he says. “With this chipset, you can increase the productivity of credit card application handling from 50 requests to 1,200 per day.

It can increase the effectiveness of cancer detection by a factor of 50.

It can reduce traffic by 8%.”

In spite of his firm belief in Huawei’s AI portfolio, Elshimy acknowledges that there remains a long journey ahead for organisations to not only understand its technologies, but also to deliver effective, enterprise-level implementations.

“There are a lot of issues that need considering, like which part of the business or which process should AI be applied to?I Where will you get the best ROI? This has to be done carefully in phases. Make it happen gradually then expand it.

You need goal, and you’ll go down blind alleys without one.

“AI reminds me of the early days of cloud when it had 100 different definitions. There are misconceptions around it. To deliver IoT and AI, you need three elements - cloud, connectivity and devices. All three are important pieces, but any customer that is looking to transform needs the combination of the three to deliver business solutions.”

On a regional level, meanwhile, Huawei is already collaborating with some of the Middle East’s most influential organisations, but believes work still needs to be done to ensure enterprises engineer a clear path for technological success. “Almost 35% of customers in the Middle East and Africa region are taking their digital transformation investments beyond servers, storage and www.tahawultech.com

networks, but a lot of companies are still not necessarily delivering the best experience. Companies are not always strategically clear on their priorities, or what part of their business they need to apply a transformation to. There’s still a level of fear in taking these steps.”

He says that a selection of industries have shown the biggest appetite for technology spend and innovation. “I think smart and safe cities will see the highest areas of spend next year,” he says. “We’re also expecting a lot of business in the energy and transport industries.”

Elshimy believes there will also be broader ethical issues

We want to focus purely on ICT infrastructure and cloud services.

that will need to be tackled head on if AI is to gain widespread acceptance by society. “In my view, its biggest challenges today are around regulation and ethics,” he says. “Take autonomous cars. They’re expected to reduce accidents by 80%, but they still need to be programmed with answers. If an autonomous car is on course to run over a pedestrian, but if it swerves it will hit a wall and kill the passenger, what should it do?

It’s an ethical debate. As well as teaching the machine to make the decision, it needs regulations, which should maybe be decided at a United Nations level.”

INFRA MANAGEMENT

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

31

FEATURE

Bas Burger, CEO, BT Global Services

HOW TO BUILD TRUST IN THE DIGITAL AGE BT Global Services’ CEO Bas Burger took time on out a recent Middle East visit to tell CNME why information sharing could increase trust in the digital age, why technology development is needed south of the equator and why the UAE’s infrastructure is invaluable.

W

hat are you hoping to achieve from your visit to the Middle East and what are your impressions of the region?

It’s important to keep coming to the Middle East to ensure our strategic plans remain on track. My impressions of the Middle East are based on the way we do business here and the ways our customers perceive things. It’s a hugely exciting region. Our customers see a lot of opportunities for publicprivate partnerships, so it’s important for us to invest in the region.

It’s definitely a growth market, and demand for digital transformation in general is very high.

32

NOVEMBER 2018

Dubai is very different to Riyadh or Egypt, and grows at a much faster rate than Europe or the US. Asia, broadly speaking, is also growing fast.

In terms of our customers who are headquartered here, they’re enjoying newer infrastructure, with the ability to connect with the rest of world compared to countries that have not invested in infrastructure in the same way that the UAE has.

Wherever there’s investment in technology and the climate is sufficiently developed for a company to settle, that region is quicker to adopt innovation. It attracts more companies that want higher standards. Dubai has done very well in that respect.

Are you saying that Dubai could be a technology hub of the future?

The world doesn’t need more technology hubs. For our customers, technology is important in order to scale their investments and deliver goods in broader markets, but technology is often geographically agnostic. If the infrastructure is bad and needs more domestic investment, then you need more sites. I’d argue that we need more development south of the equator. Dubai is geographically well positioned. If Africa grows a lot in the near future, South Africa will need to develop to support that. www.tahawultech.com

You’ve previously spoken at the World Economic Forum of the need to ‘build trust in the digital age’.

There’s more demand for trust if people feel exposed to cyber threats.

It’s not just the attacks themselves, but how you comply to rules and regulations without understanding the supply chain. If you buy something from an IT company - a chipset in a product could be open source-based - you need supply chain integrity in what you do. You need to form a block against people who want to do harm.

How important is the sharing of threat information in increasing that trust?

Maybe this is a utopian view, but effective information sharing could be the solution to that. The threats that are out there require quick information sharing to understand how to protect yourself, and that’s an arms race that can only be

Maybe this is a utopian view, but effective information sharing could be the solution to trust issues.

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

33

FEATURE

Bas Burger, CEO, BT Global Services

beaten with information sharing. We actively do that with our partners and customers.

What about sharing information with your competitors?

We do share information with some suppliers who are also our competitors, and we think that will help us in long run. We think we can improve by looking at what our customers want. Cybersecurity is the biggest threat in that respect so I think the world needs to do more.

Can technology help to bridge the gap to the world’s poorest regions?

It can be done. Technology gets less expensive all the time, and the business case for investing in technology infrastructure in poorer regions is improving. Unfortunately, a lot of these regions are used to 2G and 3G, which is cheaper, but the challenge is bringing 5G to Africa and other rural areas. It’s a big investment if you don’t have fixed infrastructure.

Initiatives between companies that own technology and governments will get closer and closer. They need to work jointly to create standards and spread the wealth through technology.

What are your customers’ biggest concerns?

Our customers are worried about doing business in faraway regions, and that they can’t implement digital technology quick enough. They’re worried about threats posed by competitors. We enable them to implement technology quicker than they could themselves.

Who are the most important regional customers you work with?

We go after MNCs that are present in multiple countries. Globally, we work with 75% of all stock exchanges, and 73% of Fortune 500 companies.

These companies have sites across the globe and in the Middle East, and we connect their sites and people. The applications they use are increasingly in environments like Azure and AWS. We connect them to cloud environments and deliver cloud contact centres.

What about in the Middle East specifically?

There’s no huge difference between what the Middle East is asking for compared to the rest of the world.

There’s obviously a huge demand for anything and everything digital transformation. A lot of firms have a long way to go, especially those whose supply chains are built on old technology. Customers are rapidly upgrading their environments, and the levels of transformation aren’t different from regions like Africa, Latin

34

NOVEMBER 2018

America and parts of Asia. They’re looking at how they can make sure that people collaborate better. They want to access talent and get people to work together. They want digital technology for better supply chains.

They want more creative ways of using digital technology to help them connect with customers throughout sales and delivery. They want data about what customers want. A lot of our existing customers have an abundance of data and they want more meaning from it.

How is BT Group preparing for the exit of CEO Gavin Patterson?

Gavin has presented a strategy with our chairman and that will be implemented. The board aren’t looking for a new CEO because the strategy was wrong; what he’s proposed will be executed. We’re currently year into our restructuring process, so that is in execution mode. www.tahawultech.com

11th December 2018

Renaissance Downtown Hotel, Dubai TahawulTech.com’s seventh edition of Hot 50 Awards is scheduled to take place on 11th December, 2018. Each year, the event inspires channel stakeholders to go above and beyond and truly optimise market opportunities to be considered as an esteemed Hot 50 brand. The exclusive event pays tribute to channel players who are resolute in their strategies to craft value and equally successful relationships for customers, partners and themselves.

#Hot50ME

www.tahawultech.com/hot50/2018/ For sponsorship enquiries Kausar Syed Group Sales Director kausar.syed@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9130 / +971 50 758 6672

Youssef Hariz Business Development Manager youssef.Hariz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9111 / +971 56 665 8683

Sabita Miranda Senior Sales Manager sabita.miranda@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9128 / +971 50 778 2771

STRATEGIC VAD PARTNER

EVENT PARTNERS

HOSTED BY

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION

ORGANISER

Nasir Bazaz Sales Manager nasir.bazaz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9147 / +971 50 101 2027

FEATURE

Ali Dalloul, Microsoft

WHY RESPONSIBLE AI USE IS NECESSARY Microsoft’s global general manager for its AI, mixed reality and Azure cognitive services strategies, Ali Dalloul, tells CNME why sound ethics must take centre stage in the use of artificial intelligence.

T

echnological progress must be balanced with approaches that benefit anyone and everyone, according to Microsoft’s general manager for strategy and commercialisation, AI, perception and mixed reality and cloud.

Speaking to CNME at GITEX Technology Week 2018, Ali Dalloul highlighted the need for responsible and ethical technology use and said that Microsoft is committed to delivering the “democratisation” of artificial intelligence to promote equality and advance human potential.

36

NOVEMBER 2018

www.tahawultech.com

Dalloul now leads the strategy and commercialisation for Microsoft’s AI, perception, and mixed reality Azure Cloud cognitive services, spanning a portfolio of computer vision, speech, audio and language.

He was previously general manager of Microsoft’s Sharing Economy strategic initiative, where he helped incubate AI-powered virtual assistant calender.help.

Dalloul also played a key role in establishing Microsoft’s presence in GCC, and is a founding member of Microsoft Middle East and Africa, having built Microsoft’s subsidiaries across the North Gulf region comprising Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar - and led them as general manager.

He highlighted the need for measured approaches to AI use.

“We need to take a step back and demystify AI,” he said. “AI is a loaded word that’s used loosely, and perceptions of it have been shaped by pop culture.

“If you look at how industry and humans have evolved in different eras, the industrial revolution was a mechanical extension of the laws of nature to scale in transport, manufacturing and applying tools.

In the computer age, it’s more about processing ability in a rule-based system. Now, the cognitive revolution is more about cognitive abilities, and how computers see hear, think and understand. It’s interesting how that creates a level playing field. For instance, if you can communicate by voice, a machine can serve anyone irrespective of whether they’re techno-literate. It eliminates the boundaries of the human-computer interface.”

Dalloul went on to highlight one of Microsoft’s main goals - to ensure AI, and technology in general, are used for good. “We’re at the point where www.tahawultech.com

AI is a loaded word that’s used loosely.

Perceptions of it have been shaped by pop culture.

we have a broader responsibility in the age of AI,” he said. “We don’t have all the answers yet, and we need to figure out what the future holds. I’m optimistic – AI can drive productivity and innovation, but it must be anchored in frameworks of responsibility and trust.

“We’re trying to democratise AI by bringing it to developers, enterprises and individuals. Bill Gates said technology is a great enabler and should be available to the masses, and we’re looking to fulfill that aim.”

Microsoft has developed a fourpoint strategy - FATE - to ensure AI stays within favourable ethical parameters. “Fairness needs to be employed,” Dalloul said. “Algorithms mustn’t contain bias. If a bot is assisting with a job interview or a loan application, you need to prevent things like racial bias. Accountability is needed for things like robots and self-driving cars - it becomes critical

to see who is accountable if things go wrong, is it the supplier of the model or the user?

“T is for transparency. It’s fundamentally important to know what a vendor is doing with data, and we’re differentiated from our competition in that respect. You know who has access to your data. Lastly, ‘e’ is for ethics. Privacy is a basic human right. People are entitled to access technology based on core ethical values.”

Microsoft is a part of the Partnership for AI, a technology industry consortium focused on establishing best practices for AI systems, and to educate the public about AI. The group comprises thought leaders, including a range of academics, MIT, the National Science Foundation, and collectively explores how issues will impact society. “We are thinking about job creation in a unique way,” Dalloul said. “It’s important to enable developers to build the best technologies. We give them pre-built AI platforms and are open to third parties. We also support deep learning frameworks and believe that empowering developers is key.”

Dalloul added that Microsoft is compelled to ensure it does not jeopardise its relationships with customers in the new, impending age of AI. “We feel a deep responsibility to our customers,” he said. “Our competitors keep us on our toes, but I really believe we’re differentiated because of our research. We have a responsibility to maintain the trust we have with enterprises and need to provide a future where AI is a true positive enabler.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more. Once the right tools have been harnessed, you can really unleash tremendous abilities on society and individuals.”

NOVEMBER 2018

37

OPINION

IBM-Maersk Blockchain deal

LOST AT SEA Rick Schmitz, CEO of LTO Network, gives his take on why the IBM-Maersk Blockchain venture has encountered serious problems, and offers a solution to the biggest problems with the distributed ledger technology.

I

n October, Coindesk posted an article titled ‘IBM and Maersk struggle to sign partners to shipping Blockchain’. Journalist Ian Allison wrote, “It’s hard enough to get enterprises that compete with each other to work together as a team, but it’s especially tricky when one of those rivals owns the team.”

It’s important not to make any wrong assumptions here. For example, one shouldn’t think that the Blockchain is not needed, or that its adoption is impossible.

Quite the opposite, in fact, as there is a huge market; one only needs to take a look at the McKinsey report to realise the obvious opportunities that this technology represents.

Businesses are in need of a way to collaborate, but they need to manage conflicting economic and political interests.

Blockchain is the obvious solution here, but the IBM-Maersk implementation was doomed to fail - which is the key takeaway here for the entire B2B Blockchain industry.

38

NOVEMBER 2018

The goal was to create a level playing field for competitors to interact with one another, without the need to trust a third party.

The need for a trustless setup comes from the fact that all parties - shippers, manufacturers and suppliers - have different economic and political interests at stake.

Therefore, utilising Blockchain technology makes perfect sense.

However, the execution by IBM and Maersk Group is not something that can be categorised as trustless or equal.

IBM and the Maersk Group are essentially in control of the platform. There is nothing trustless with this setup. Instead of creating a level playing field, the two giants made a platform and then expected competitors to join it.

Smaller companies, who would want to dive in and get a piece of the market, would have to use the solution owned and controlled by their largest competitor. Needless to say, this makes no sense for the smaller company. Next to

that, since this is a consortium chain where you need an authority to approve new consortium members, the processes become cumbersome and inflexible.

There is no way to create ad-hoc processes and quickly change a shipper or a supplier.

Together, these shortcomings only increase the administrative burden that Blockchain technology should help eliminate. This does not sound so different from a normal software solution, but in this case, it is even controlled by your biggest competitors. Adding to that the obligated product push by IBM, the entire picture looks quite bad indeed. Instead of allowing parties to use their existing systems, IBM obliges its clients to use the software and the tools developed

by IBM, thereby increasing the costs of adoption and making the entry barrier even higher. In the end, one would spend more on the implementation of the platform than one would save by adopting Blockchain technology. www.tahawultech.com

The execution by IBM and Maersk Group is not something that can be categorised as trustless or equal.

Overall, the solution was doomed to fail due to the technical and logistical shortcomings of this cooperation. I would even argue that it can hardly even be called a Blockchain solution.

This begs the question: is B2B blockchain adoption doomed to fail in general? Will the pilots be running forever, wasting millions of dollars, and that’s it? Famous Blockchain professor Emin Gin Surer, has shared similar thoughts on Twitter, “I called this 2.5 years ago,” he wrote. “Consortia Blockchains are a poor fit for businesses and very difficult to hold together. We’ll see many proof of concept attempts, but I suspect all of them will fall into disuse.”

The beauty of the Blockchain is its censorship-resistance and trustless execution, which are only possible due to decentralisation of validators. The hybrid approach basically takes the best out of the two worlds. www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

39

CASE STUDY

Dubai South

BRINGING DUBAI SOUTH UP TO SPEED The mega-development housing (Dubai South) the next super-airport and Dubai Expo site turns to Huawei for ultimate connectivity and performance.

D

ubai isn’t shy of a few mega-developments. The incredible and ambitious rate of infrastructure growth in the Emirate is what keeps it at the forefront of innovation and

40

NOVEMBER 2018

industry. In the past three decades, Dubai has raced ahead of the pack and established itself as the first true mega-city of the GCC. From the humble yet impressive World Trade Centre in 1979, to the

formidable Jumeriah Beach Resort and Burj Al Arab in 1997 and 1999, respectively, to the sudden rise of Jumeirah Lakes Towers in 2008 and 2009. Since then, more collective and strategic mini-environments have

www.tahawultech.com

erupted from the ground – Sustainable City, MBR City, International City, Academic City, and so on.

However, few of those developments mount much of a fight against the significance of what’s being built out in the South of the city, just shy of the Abu Dhabi border.

Dubai South, one of the newest and largest developments in the Emirate, is a sustainable, diverse development that not only plays wonderfully into the wider vision of Dubai by creating a living and working environment for all, but also plays home to two of the most important Dubai construction projects in its history.

Firstly, sitting right in the middle of the map is Al Maktoum International Airport – set to become the world’s largest airport, shepherding in excess of 220 million passengers annually when complete. And second is the site of the Dubai Expo 2020 – the World Fair. The masterplan is then made complete by a golf district, aviation district, commercial district, logistics district and residential district.

When complete, Dubai South will be one of the most substantial and impressive developments, for residents, travellers, and professionals alike, Dubai has ever seen. In this case, it’s vitally important that each and every element of the development is empowered with reliable and effective connectivity and security. A collective space is greater

than the sum of its parts, and Dubai South wanted to ensure its districts could perform to a high level across the board.

System update Having operated on its existing software for more than six years, the team decided it was time for an update. The Dubai South operation “has very specific technical needs,” as Mohammad Alzaffin, IT Director says, and given the growth in Dubai South’s business and operations, it needed an update in order to accommodate the diverse business streams and volume or companies and residences that will more than double by 2021.

“We had previously signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei, so we were keen to engage with them to see how they could help us out,” Mohammad Alzaffin says. “Firstly, for us, at this time, cost was most critical. Huawei managed to offer us the very highest performance technologies at the most competitive price.”

They turned to Huawei for assistance with updating three layers of their infrastructure: network, security and wireless.

The challenge for Dubai South at that time was the speed of processing, making basic tasks more stressful on the system than they needed to be. The Dubai South main campus employs more than 200 people – that

Huawei managed to offer us the very highest performance technologies at the most competitive price.

www.tahawultech.com

Mohammad Alzaffin, director of IT, Dubai South

equates to somewhere between 450550 endpoint connections, shared among corporate staff, guests, and additional devices. Moreover, those endpoints needed to be secure, given the sensitivity of the projects being managed on-site.

Following a proof-of-concept in July 2017, Huawei began a 30-day planning and installation program – the solution itself would be rolled out over the following six months, with certification training to follow.

However, critical knowledge transfer was completed immediately so Dubai South could begin optimizing its operations as soon as the solution had been switched on.

In the year that’s followed, the performance of Dubai South’s networks has significantly improved.

“We are progressing this project, the Huawei team has been very humble and helpful, and the performance has added real value to our business,” Mohammad Alzaffin says.

This performance will be crucial in the next phase of Dubai South’s journey towards delivering a megaproject that encompasses Dubai’s next major global event, the Dubai EXPO 2020, and delivers what will become the world’s largest airport, Al Maktoum International Airport. .

NOVEMBER 2018

41

INSIGHT

Gartner

GARTNER: WHAT’S IN STORE FOR 2019 Gartner vice president and fellow Daryl Plummer gives his take on what next year has in store for the technology industry.

F

or patients with chronic illnesses in rural areas, clinician shortages can present a real health challenge. A flare-up or health issue might mean a trip to the emergency room, which is costly for the patient and the hospital. Now, patients can meet with doctors in different cities by utilising virtual care, which provides convenient and costeffective healthcare.

AI-enhanced virtual care is one of Gartner’s 10 top predictions for 2019 and beyond. The predictions examine three fundamental effects of continued digital innovation: AI and skills, cultural advancement and processes becoming products.

AI skills don’t scale Until 2020, 80% of AI projects will remain alchemy, run by wizards whose talents will not scale in the organisation. In the past five years, the increasing popularity and hype surrounding AI techniques have led to an increase in projects. However, the overwhelming hype has also led to unreasonable expectations from 42

NOVEMBER 2018

the business. Change is outpacing the production of competent professionals, which means that AI is more of an art form than a science. The lack of a common language among all parties remains a barrier to scalability, as do specific and narrow AI skillsets.

AI locates missing people By 2023, there will be an 80% reduction in missing people in mature markets compared to 2018, due to AI face recognition. Over the next few years, advances in AI will lead to increasingly sophisticated facial recognition technology, particularly useful in identifying lost children or elderly citizens.

Although current facial recognition is limited in application, the speed of recognition using one-to-many matching, even in large sample sets, is less than 600 microseconds.

Virtual care improves health By 2023, U.S. emergency department visits will be reduced by 20 million due to the enrollment of chronically ill patients in AI-enhanced virtual care.

Virtual healthcare has demonstrated that it can offer more convenient and cost-effective care than conventional face-to-face care.

Clinician shortages, in addition to an increased focus on outcomes, coordinated care and population health, are driving a push to more efficient and effective care models.

Successful use of virtual care lowers costs and improves quality of delivery as well as overall access to care.

Affidavits fail cyberbullying By 2023, 25% of organisations will require employees to sign affidavits to avoid cyberbullying, but 70% of these initiatives will fail.

In an attempt to curb workplace cyberbullying, enterprises will strengthen workplace codes of conduct and require employees to sign affidavits of agreement.

However, cyberbullying isn’t eradicated by agreements — that requires a shift in organisational culture. Companies should begin to train employees to recognise and report cyberbullying. www.tahawultech.com

Diversity drives financial targets Through 2022, 75% of organisations with frontline decision-making teams reflecting a diverse and inclusive culture will exceed their financial targets. Companies understand the benefits of diversity, but must now move toward a focus on different types of diversity (e.g., thought processes and work styles) and a deliberate focus on inclusivity. These policies should be co-developed by business and HR leaders.

Personal data poisons Blockchain By 2021, 75% of public blockchains will suffer “privacy poisoning” — inserted personal data that renders the blockchain noncompliant with privacy laws. With the steep learning curve associated with Blockchain technology, developers are at risk for accidentally storing personal data in a noncompliant way. Because Blockchains are immutable, personal data can’t be deleted without compromising chain integrity. However, continuing to store personal data violates privacy legislation. Establish privacy-bydesign principles at the onset of the Blockchain architecture, including a ban on free text, where personal data would be stored.

Daryl Plummer Gartner vice president

Privacy laws cripple ad sales By 2023, e-privacy regulations will increase online costs by minimising the use of “cookies,” thus crippling the current internet ad revenue machine. As legislation to protect consumers’ data becomes more prevalent, it will impede the current internet advertising infrastructure and its major players. Traditionally, companies use consumer data via cookies to personalise and direct ads, but GDPR and e-privacy laws require informed consent of how that information will be used and possibly sold.

Until 2020, 80% of AI projects will remain alchemy, run by wizards whose talents will not scale in the organisation.

www.tahawultech.com

Cloud spawns new products Through 2022, a fast path to digital will be converting internal capabilities to external revenue-generating products using cloud economics and flexibility. Historically, internal IT teams looking to market unique capabilities haven’t been able to for economic, technical and marketing reasons. However, cloud infrastructure and cloud service providers solve many of these challenges. Supporting scale is the cloud provider’s responsibility, the app store markets the app, and cloud tools make support and enhancement easier. As companies begin to see digital revenue from marketing internal tools, others will follow suit.

Gatekeepers gain market share By 2022, companies leveraging the “gatekeeper” position of the digital giants will capture 40% global market share on average in their industry. In 2019, the digital giants will deliver double-digit revenue growth by attracting more users globally and supporting more usage. These companies control vast economic ecosystems. With increasing connections and users, they are poised to gain even more market share.

Consumers ignore security breaches Through 2021, social media scandals and security breaches will have effectively lasting consumer impact. The benefits of using technology will outweigh security and privacy concerns. People generally feel technology companies should be regulated, but despite recent security breaches, most continue using digital services and companies make very limited changes in the wake of an event.

NOVEMBER 2018

43

OPINION

UAE minister of climate change and environment

WHY UAE YOUTH WILL DRIVE SUSTAINABILITY UAE Minister of climate change and environment, Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, gives his take on why the country’s young people will play a crucial role in building sustainable businesses through technology.

W

hile people of all ages share the goal of maintaining a sustainable and healthy planet, it is the youngest members of the global population who can have the longest influence and make the biggest contribution to sustainable living.

Today, young people in the UAE have a unique opportunity and responsibility to continue the environmental conservation efforts of their forefathers in safeguarding the UAE’s natural heritage. They are in prime position to make the most significant contribution to sustainable living and ensure the biggest impact, as they find it easy to communicate and share their ideas while also being more receptive to change and adopting new perspectives.

As critical thinkers, changemakers and communicators, the country’s youth play a pivotal role in achieving the 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets set by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Young people today actively champion efforts to enact change that will make the world a better place.

In the UAE, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment seeks to promote this trend through 44

NOVEMBER 2018

encouraging young people to take up green entrepreneurship. In 2017, the Ministry launched the Climate Innovations Exchange, which connects young entrepreneurs with investors to help implement sustainable climate change solutions. Potentially, CLIX could direct funding worth millions of dollars to green projects.

Although the UAE has some of the largest oil reserves worldwide, its leadership places great importance on setting plans and strategies to diversify the country’s energy sources and increasing the use of renewable and clean energy.

The country’s youth play a pivotal role in achieving the 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets set by the United Nations

UAE Minister of climate change and environment, Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi

The UAE has launched several remarkable initiatives at a federal and local level, including the UAE Vision 2021, the UAE Centennial 2071, and the UAE Energy Strategy 2050 that has set the ambitious target of increasing the contribution of clean energy to the country’s energy mix to 50 percent by 2050.

In the coming years, the UAE aims to reinforce its status as an environmental pioneer and become a leader in endorsing green initiatives. The launch of the World Green Economy Summit (WGES) in 2014 under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was another step towards realising this goal.

WGES facilitates the exchange of knowledge and highlights new technologies that can drive the growth of the green economy, including improvements in energy efficiency, energy conservation and waste reduction. The fifth edition of the event ran from October 24th-25th in Dubai under the theme ‘Driving innovation, leading change’.

With comprehensive strategies, targeted initiatives, and joint projects between the public and private sector, the UAE is well on track to achieving its vision for a more sustainable future. www.tahawultech.com

刀攀瀀漀最爀愀昀椀砀

夀漀甀爀 刀攀氀椀愀戀氀攀 倀爀椀渀琀椀渀最 倀愀爀琀渀攀爀

眀眀眀⸀爀攀瀀漀最爀愀昀椀砀搀甀戀愀椀⸀挀漀洀 猀愀氀攀猀䀀爀攀瀀漀最爀愀昀椀砀搀甀戀愀椀⸀挀漀洀 ⬀㤀㜀㄀ 㐀 ㈀㐀 㘀㐀㈀㌀ 䐀甀戀愀椀Ⰰ 唀䄀䔀

䠀椀最栀 䌀愀瀀愀挀椀琀礀 琀漀 瀀爀椀渀琀 洀漀爀攀 瀀愀最攀猀

䘀爀攀攀 搀攀氀椀瘀攀爀礀 昀漀爀 琀眀漀 漀爀 洀漀爀攀 挀愀爀琀爀椀搀最攀 愀渀礀眀栀攀爀攀 椀渀 琀栀攀 唀䄀䔀 匀椀洀椀氀愀爀 瀀愀最攀 礀椀攀氀搀 愀渀搀 瀀攀爀昀漀爀洀愀渀挀攀 琀漀 琀栀攀 伀䔀䴀 一攀砀琀 搀愀礀 搀攀氀椀瘀攀爀礀 ㈀㐀 洀漀渀琀栀猀 眀愀爀爀愀渀琀礀 漀渀 漀甀爀 吀漀渀攀爀 䌀愀爀琀爀椀搀最攀猀 䘀爀攀攀 瀀爀椀渀琀攀爀 猀攀爀瘀椀挀攀 䌀漀洀瀀愀琀椀戀氀攀猀 琀漀 䠀倀Ⰰ 䈀爀漀琀栀攀爀Ⰰ 匀愀洀猀甀渀最Ⰰ 䌀愀渀漀渀Ⰰ 堀攀爀漀砀Ⰰ 䬀漀渀椀挀愀 䴀椀渀漀氀琀愀Ⰰ 䬀礀漀挀攀爀愀Ⰰ 刀椀挀漀栀 攀琀挀⸀

䌀漀洀瀀愀琀椀戀氀攀 吀漀渀攀爀 䌀愀爀琀爀椀搀最攀 簀 倀爀椀渀琀攀爀 漀渀 䰀攀愀猀攀 䄀䴀䌀 簀 伀渀猀椀琀攀 匀甀瀀瀀漀爀琀 簀 伀䔀䴀 倀爀椀渀琀攀爀

FEATURE

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

HOW ORACLE PROVIDES A UNIQUE VIEW OF THE UAE'S Oracle’s senior director of Internet research and analysis for its Cloud Infrastructure division, Dave Belson, explains how the firm’s new service helps UAE businesses monitor the volatility of internet traffic.

Dave Belson, senior director of Internet research and analysis, Oracle

T

he level of Internet activity in the UAE follows a clear and regular pattern over the course of a week.

From Sunday to Thursday, it climbs rapidly each morning and plateaus for several hours before dropping and levelling out again, this time for a shorter period. Activity then drops further, reaching its lowest ebb during the night before the daily cycle starts again.

During the weekend, peaks of activity during the day are lower, and there is just a single plateau, which lasts longer.

46

NOVEMBER 2018

You an be assured it’s not your application causing the problem.

This is a high-level troubleshooting tool.

Information such as this is available on the Oracle Internet Intelligence Map, a tool for businesses to monitor volatility in Internet traffic.

Launched in June and powered

by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, this web portal allows users to assess levels of Internet traffic globally and determine if outside factors might be causing disruption to their own operations. They can also assess activity in particular countries, including the Emirates.

“We have a measurement agent hosted in a cloud provider in the UAE,” said David Belson, a senior director of Internet research and analysis at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The map shows, for example, country-level security threats that could impact internet performance, along with connectivity statistics and transit shifts.

“We have historically kept it close to our chest over the last few years.

It’s an opportunity for us to share and to be more open and to give back to the Internet community,” said Belson.

Belson said the map could be used, for example, to assess the impact that a particular event, such as the arrival of extreme weather, was having in a given area. www.tahawultech.com

“If you are a site or web application owner and you’re getting complaints, you live in the UAE, you’re getting trouble getting on your application, you could look at this and see there’s significant disruption. You could be assured it’s not your application. It’s a high-level troubleshooting tool,” said Belson.

The tool, which works with Oracle’s cloud infrastructure, could also help companies cut the amount of Internet downtime that they suffer.

Global maps show hotspots of potential disruptions and indicate traffic shifts in the previous 48 hours.

Myriad factors might cause country-level alterations in the level of internet traffic. While extreme weather events can disrupt traffic, the run-up to them might lead to an increase in activity

www.tahawultech.com

as citizens seek information about what is about to happen.

Oracle’s Internet Intelligence division, known as Dyn Research before its acquisition by Oracle,

has been constantly monitoring the Internet for more than a decade and that data has been recorded.

The tool can be accessed at internetintel.oracle.com/index.html.

NOVEMBER 2018

47

INSIGHT

Salesforce

CAN IT DELIVER ON MOUNTING AI EXPECTATIONS?

Salesforce’s senior vice president for EMEA platform and communities, Adam Spearing, believes demanding customers have raised the bar for the ways organisations introduce artificial intelligence.

T

here was a time when customers were surprised and delighted every time they received a personalised engagement with a brand - emails with dynamic content, tailored ads and product recommendations at the bottom of the page. Just a few short years later, they aren’t as easy to please - particularly millennials who have come to expect service at their fingertips or just a tap away on a mobile phone. Today, customers not only want personalisation - they want brands to know what they want before they even know it themselves.

AI-powered developments like personalised recommendations and automatic order fulfillments have given customers more selection and flexibility than ever before, significantly raising the bar by which customers judge companies.

It’s borne out by research. A Salesforce special report, ‘The AI Revolution’ revealed that 75% of business buyers expect that by 2020, companies will anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions before they even contact them.

So what does that mean for business? When their expectations aren’t met, customers are likely to jump ship. In fact, half of all 48

NOVEMBER 2018

consumers are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t anticipate their needs. In today’s competitive climate I don’t think any company can afford to take that risk.

To respond to this, every team across the business is now looking at how they can use AI to deliver more personalised experiences and better anticipate the needs of their customers.

Customer expectations prompt AI experiments Advancements in AI come at a perfect time for businesses to experiment and adjust their strategies to provide the personalised, predictive experiences today’s connected customers increasingly view as standard. And it’s not just marketing that’s responding.

Today, 78% of sales teams have increased their focus on anticipating customer needs, while 75% have increased their focus on personalising customer interactions. More importantly, instead of maintaining their traditional reactionary role, highperforming sales teams are building trusted advisor relationships with customers through personalised and proactive engagement by way of AI. Customer service teams have upped their game as well. Just as the

local store owner knows the dayto-day needs of his neighbourhood customers, AI-powered tools can now be applied to customer interactions for more fulfilling relationships and anticipatory transactions (just on a much larger scale). The majority of customer service teams (65%) have already increased their focus on personalising service interactions, while 62% have increased focus on providing proactive service. Rather than replace human contact, AI enhances the experience by adding human-like intelligence to simple transactions and interactions. For instance, machine learning could analyse a caller’s word choice to understand emotions and recommend the next best thing for an agent to say.

As expectations mount, highperforming service teams are already working to integrate AI into everything they do, as they believe it will have a lasting impact on their practices by 2020.

IT teams need to define their strategy to meet company objectives As marketing, sales and service teams seek to anticipate the needs of prospects and customers, they’re turning to IT to get the job done. The question is: can they keep up? www.tahawultech.com

According to Salesforce’s second annual State of IT report, AI is the number two technology that IT teams expect to have a transformational impact on by 2020 (second only to ubiquitous cloud computing). Over the next 12–18 months, they even anticipate 30% growth in AI to keep up with the mounting needs of the business.

But even that may not be enough. Sales teams, for example, are anticipating 139% growth in AI that automatically recommends products to customers based on their preferences within 36 months.

So that leaves the IT teams with a massive hole to fill - and research indicates they may not be prepared to deliver. Though plans are underway to meet growing AI needs, less than a quarter of IT teams (20%) have comprehensively defined tech plans and only 23% have comprehensively defined business plans for AI. It’s a huge chasm to cross. And with a limited amount of time before AI reaches critical importance, they must start somewhere. Thus, IT has turned to a more calculated approach where they can trial what works on a temporary basis, employing a series of testing and implementation cycles in high-need business units like sales before rolling new processes out across the company.

Demonstrate that AI adds business value Smart interactions are therefore critical to business success, but only 23% of business users say they have complete confidence in the capacity/ bandwidth of their employees to execute on an AI business strategy.

Today’s business leaders must demonstrate firmly that AI adds value for business users and helps them drive deeper engagement with customers, rather than adding a technologybased hurdle to their daily duties.

Even then, it’s not enough to turn businesses into believers.

To create real value, companies must carefully examine how the technology will fit into their specific business processes and set comprehensive plans to deliver.

What’s more, teams must treat AI as a muscle

that learns and grows from data.

Companies must create a clear AI roadmap that accounts for early learning curves, and know that with time and experimentation, these roadmaps will turn into customer insights that set them apart from their competition and place them on the trail to success.

Adam Spearing, senior vice president, Salesforce, EMEA

Teams must treat AI as a muscle that learns and grows from data.

www.tahawultech.com

NOVEMBER 2018

49

COLUMN

Glesni Holland

OUTCOMES OVER OPTICS

T

he mass walk-out of over 20,000 staff members from Google offices has brought the prominence of the #MeToo campaign within tech firms to the forefront of global news once more.

Banners proclaiming, “enough is enough,” and calls for executives to “keep it about the work” have been spotted throughout the protest that spanned 50 cities worldwide, as the movement pledges to “protest sexual harassment, misconduct, lack of transparency, and a workplace that doesn’t work for everyone.”

The catalyst for this latest outrage came when the New York Times reported that Google granted Android co-founder Andy Rubin a $90 million pay-out after the company learned of a sexual misconduct allegation against him in 2014. Rather than outing him, the report claims that the Alphabet company instead praised Rubin 50

NOVEMBER 2018

for his achievements and kept his misconduct under wraps.

I read an interview with author and US journalist Emily Chang last month, and I believe her statements ring true in light of recent events. Her book Brotopia was released earlier this year, and exposes Silicon Valley’s “macho culture,” and trounces the notion that the Valley is a modern utopia where anyone – regardless of their gender, can change the world or make their own rules.

In the interview, Chang actually praised Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for their initial desire to hire and promote women in the early days – noting a handful of their former employees, including Susan Wojcicki, Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer. But she went on to say that it seems the pair “lost focus” and became fixated on “getting people in the seats as fast as possible.”

Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case in the Middle East.

Women in tech are exceptionally well represented here in comparison to other nations. The Economist recently reported that 35% of tech entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa region are women; an impressive stat considering the global average of 10%.

But while organisers of the walkout were told that Google CEO Sundar Pichai will hold a meeting with his leadership team to “review a plan that would address the demands,” pledges must not be regarded as a cure-all tactic in these situations. Pichai even went on to dedicate his “full commitment” to “making progress on an issue that has persisted for far too long in our society… and, yes, here at Google, too.”

What’s really needed here is outcomes over optics, and only time will tell as to whether these PR-worthy statements materialise into anything more. www.tahawultech.com

AGC'S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SOLUTIONS AND APPLICATIONS Harnessing emerging tech to enable true transformation:

ACCELERATING YOUR

DIGITAL JOURNEY #AGCDigital

Customer Experience Contact Centers, Omni Channels, Self-Service, Voice Biometrics

AGC Networks understands the digital wave and can help plan your digital transformation strategy

Customer Journey Interaction Analytics

Customer Engagement & Loyalty CX Measurement , NPS Analytics, Customer Effort Score

Automation RPA, Desktop Automation, Chat and Speech Bots

Gamification E- learning, Contact Centers

/AGC.Networks.Limited /AGCNetworksLTD /company/agc-networks

About AGC Networks AGC Networks (AGC) is a Global Solution Provider representing the world’s best brands in Unified Communications, Data Center and Edge IT, Cyber Security (CYBER-i) and Digital Transformation & Applications to evolve the customer’s digital landscape. AGC’s ability to tailor solutions is strengthened by seamless services. For more details visit www.agcnetworks.com

info@agcnetworks.com | www.agcnetworks.com

This is how the future works Citrix Workspace

Secure instant access to apps, data and desktops

Citrix Analytics

Full visibility and insights through intelligent analytics

Citrix Networking

Experience, Security and Choice