HELPING BRANDS GROW EXPONENTIALLY IN THE METAVERSE
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January 2023 Vol - 4 Issue - 1
Must-Watch Tech Companies in 2023
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Staying away from technology seems an impossible task in 2023. With the global internet penetration rate reaching beyond 63%, the world has around 50 billion smart devices collecting, analyzing, and sharing data every second. Supporting these devices in various ways are 1.35 million tech companies operating from every nuke and corner of the world. I got this information sitting in the comfort of my home through a couple of Google searches. Yes, I just did the one among the 99,000 searches Google gets every second which results in close to 9 billion queries each day on average.
With so much information at our fingertips, technology is advancing so fast that even the trends we predict in early 2023 might be obsolete by the end of the year. Nothing is future-proof now. However, by understanding the direction in which the human race is progressing, we can make future-
friendly organizations. How do we create them? By learning with the help of technology available - through billions of videos, podcasts, audio, and text over the internet.
To help our readers know more about the technology trends and success stories of companies that have found the solution to be future-friendly, we have developed a special issue featuring 10 Must-Watch Tech Companies in 2023. They have not only built profitable business models in a dynamic market but have shown the world what it takes to be an industry disrupter across technology. On the cover, we feature Dr. Martha Boeckenfeld, a Metaverse Strategist, Advisor, and Speaker passionate about Emerging Tech, Blockchain, and the Metaverse and a firm believer in the Power of Innovation. Enjoy Reading.
Sarath Shyam
DEAN AND PARTNER, METAVERSE ACADEMY THOUGHT LEADER, ADVISOR & SPEAKER
HELPING BRANDS GROW EXPONENTIALLY IN THE METAVERSE
Carrying out a successful transformation of a business requires 20% clear vision, and 80% implementation skills. The days of the flag carrying ‘follow me’ sort of the leader has now disappeared. Effective leaders now need to have clear attributes such as having a transformative
vision, the ability to be forward thinking, and an understanding of new technologies. Strength of purpose should not be confused with a bullying attitude. Leaders also need to have a collaborative nature and be open to change. Each of these attributes perhaps justifies an article in themselves but the focus here is on one particular aspect, which is that of
Success is mainly not a matter of luckalthough sometimes good fortune can play a part - but rather it is a byproduct of good team building and detailed planning
Tony Boobier is a former worldwide technology executive who now provides advisory and mentoring services to new and established organizations. Qualified in engineering, insurance, marketing, and supply chain management, he has a particular interest in European, Asian and Latin American markets. Independently identified as a global thought leader, he is the author of four published books on the topics of AI and analytics, including ‘Advanced Analytics and AI: Impact, Implementation and the Future of Work’. His ‘lockdown project’ comprised his 4th book ‘AI and the Future of the Public Sector’ which was released in August 2022. He lives near London.
being able to turn words into actions, or the process of implementation.
The ability of a leader to effectively activate their vision remains critical. Without being able to deliver against vision, their plan is simply a matter of rhetoric or ‘just words’. Yet despite its importance, the topic of implementation is often considered by many as merely an after-thought. Implementation needs to be front and centre of mind.
Successful delivery of a new project has the same essential ingredients whether it is a technology-based transformation or not. Success is mainly not a matter of luck - although sometimes good fortune can play a part - but
rather it is a byproduct of good team building and detailed planning.
Three factors especially stand out as being critical in the current age, those of communication, measurement and certainty of delivery.
Firstly, the ability of the leader to be able to describe their vision for the future is extremely important, using words which are understandable to all key stakeholders. Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate, without the use of jargon or of oversimplification, recognising that those involved are likely to have different types and levels of knowledge. Sometimes it will also be necessary to fine-tune a message to suit a particular audience.
Many organisations try to ensure that there is a ‘single version of the truth’ as far as benefit capture is concerned so as to avoid any disagreement with the numbers
Many forms of technology are aimed at improving operational efficiency. For some employees, that may equate to job losses and as a result may be threatening to them. Effective leaders need to have empathy with those affected, and to treat their concerns realistically.
The second critical element is that of accurately measuring the benefit of any change which has been, or will be made. This requires an effective mechanism to monitor progress and to identify what difference any change in process or the introduction of technologies has made. Many organisations try to ensure that there is a ‘single version of the truth’ as far as benefit capture is concerned so as to avoid any disagreement with the numbers.
Even so, there is still room for potential ambiguity. So called ‘pilot schemes’ or proofs of concept may not always be fully representative of the full picture. As a result they may provide an uneven or even a biased picture of what might happen on a grander, enterprise-wide scale. For this reason, the use of a pilot scheme needs to be carefully planned to ensure that any expected outcomes extrapolated from a pilot scheme are valid.
Beyond this, there are often additional benefits from change which are more difficult to quantify which are known as ‘soft benefit’ (in contrast to more tangible or ‘hard’ benefits). These soft benefits might affect customer or employee attitudes in either a positive or negative way. The new use of automated systems for example may give greater consistency to outcomes which is a positive thing, but perhaps provide less flexibility which some might view as a negative attribute.
The third issue to focus on is that of certainty of implementation. Many transformations are
plagued with missed deadlines, late delivery and an absence of promised benefits. Speed of implementation can reduce the likelihood of missed deadlines but ‘speed’ should not confuse be confused with ‘recklessness’, but rather that there is a clear, assertive and detailed path to success in place. Cloud-based systems are improving speed of delivery and ‘time-to-value’, that is, the length of time between purchasing technology and deriving value from it.
Rapid and effective deployment requires a comprehensive plan which ensures that all the key elements of transformation are anticipated and planned for. For example, a comprehensive approach to communication needs to be in place and a robust benefit management system should already be operating.
Each element of a transformation process needs to be considered as a project in itself, all feeding into a master programme of activities. Many of these are likely to be interdependent. It is naïve to expect that any transformation will be trouble free and this may also require a degree of agility and flexibility but this need not translate into delay. However, many issues are able to be anticipated, captured on a risk register, and potential mitigating actions can be identified early in the planning stage.
All this might sound complicated, and sometimes it can be, but a leader without the ability to effectively implement their vision may be no more than a paper tiger, that is, someone who seems to be in command but cannot carry out what they have said. Without being able to put words into action, and to implement their vision effectively a leader would be, to quote William Shakespeare from his play ‘Macbeth’, no more than ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’.
Dr. Martha Boeckenfeld is a Metaverse Strategist, Advisor and Speaker, who is passionate about Emerging Tech, Blockchain and the Metaverse, and a strong believer in the Power of Innovation. She helps companies to enter the web3, the Metaverse and NFT space, where they can extend their brand presence, offering, and creativity, maximizing engagement with their clients and employees while reinventing their business verticals from Web2 to Web3.
As a Dean & Partner in the Metaverse Academy, she enables companies and individuals to be part of the exciting future through community building and actively engaging in the metaverse. She has been nominated as one of the Top100 Women of The Future (Featured for Web3 & Metaverse), Top5 Women in Tech Europe (Web3). Top 32 Influencer & Thought Leader Metaverse by Onalytic.
In an exclusive interview with Digital First Magazine, Dr. Martha Boeckenfeld reveals the top 3 Web 3.0 trends to watch out for in 2023. She also sheds light on Metaverse and the stepwise process she uses to help companies create and operate their Metaverse and Web3 strategy. Following are the excerpts from the interview.
According to you, what are the top 3 Web 3.0 trends to watch out for in 2023?
Let’s define Web3 first: Web3 covers technologies like blockchain, cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTS) and decentralized autonomous organization (DAOs). These provides us with new possibilities to create virtual spaces, which we truly own and in those spaces, we can create more democracy.
In my view the three trends to watch are:
AR/VR - The access to the metaverse usually is via mobile, desktop or VR headset. Apple is working on AR/VR glasses, which
will fundamentally change the way we can use augmented reality and interact in virtual worlds. I would however not expect mass adoption at this point as this technology will be fairly expensive at the beginning.
NFTs are currently well know through the sale of digital artwork for millions of dollars. More importantly is the “utility” of NFTs for other use cases such as digital identity, real goods, and assets
GIRLS’ EDUCATION EXEMPLIFIES THE PRESENT-DAY LIMITATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES IN WEB3, THE LACK OF ACCESS HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST HINDRANCE. WITH THE RIGHT SUPPORT FROM AUTHORITIES, THE NEXT-GENERATION INTERNET CAN COMPLETELY REVAMP THE LEARNING PROCESS
(e.g. real estate). Brands like Nike have already started to create phygital goods, Breitling is using NFTs for a digital twin of their wallet, Starbucks for a loyality program. NFT use cases will go beyond the hype of digital art and new utilities will be more widely used.
I would expect more government interaction, regulation, cyberisk prevention as regulation is far behind the technological advancements of Web3.
What does ‘Metaverse’ mean to you? And why are more and more companies exploring the commercial potential of the Metaverse?
To its full extent, right now the Metaverse is a vision. The Metaverse is the future of the internet: A massively scaled persistent, interactive, and interoperable real-time platform that creates a bridge between interconnected virtual worlds
THE METAVERSE ECONOMY IS ESTIMATED TO GROW INTO A TRILLION DOLLAR ECONOMYACCORDING TO MCKINSEY, THE METAVERSE COULD BE WORTH $5 TRILLION BY 2030 AND IS POTENTIALLY THE BIGGEST NEW GROWTH OPPORTUNITY FOR SEVERAL SECTORS IN THE COMING DECADE THAT INCLUDE CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS, RETAIL, FINANCIAL SERVICES, TECHNOLOGY, MANUFACTURING, AND HEALTHCARE
and real world where people can socialize, work, transact, play, and create (inspired by Mathew Ball).
Companies are trying to catch up and capture the growth opportunity. The Metaverse economy is estimated to grow into a trillion Dollar economyAccording to McKinsey, the metaverse could be worth $5 trillion by 2030 and is potentially the biggest new growth opportunity for several sectors in the coming decade that include consumer packaged goods, retail, financial services, technology, manufacturing, and healthcare. Even though, we are just at the beginning, companies clearly understand the asymmetrical risk of being left behind versus the incremental value of the investment needed to explore this new landscape.
Please tell us about the Metaverse Academy. What are its objectives and vision?
We are passionate about education and believe that education makes us better human beings. Research has shown that Web3 reimagines the learning process. We are using the power of the Metaverse to create immersive learning experiences that inspire creativity, collaborate and critical thinking. From primary and higher education to girls’ education, literacy levels and tech skilling, the possibilities are limitless.
Web3 and the Metaverse allows also more access and inclusion. Girls’ education exemplifies the present-day limitations and possibilities in Web3, the lack of access has been the biggest hindrance. With the right support from authorities, the next-generation internet can completely revamp the learning process.
We have been overwhelmed by the positive response of our experiences offered and are
delighted that we could take already over 500 people into virtual world experiences.
In today’s highly competitive market, why brand authenticity is important? Brands need to create trust and act with a clear purpose. Quite often this is connected with education and creating a community. Take for example Nike, Nike created a sophisticated, interactive space within a popular digital gaming environment.
The global athletic brand launched a proprietary virtual world called “Nikeland” on the popular Roblox digital gaming platform. Virtual buildings and fields inside Nikeland are based on the company’s real-life Beaverton, Ore., headquarters,and hold detailed arenas where Roblox players compete in various mini-games.
At launch, consumers could participate in virtual games such as tag, the floor is lava, and dodgeball with their friends. With the Nikeland tool kit, users can design their own mini-games from interactive sports materials. In addition, the Nikeland virtual experience is enhanced by real-life movement. They even had a baseball Pro giving Baseball lessons in the game. Nikeland attracted 7m users within only a few months. Nike is no longer about selling a product but living healthy and providing learning to their community- “Magic Is In The Air” lets people thrive.
You are an Ambassador for AllStarsWomen DAO. Can you please tell us about the organization and your role in them?
For many, the metaverse means potential for an exciting future. But the meta-society is facing some of the same intractable issues we
do in real life. McKinsey & Company senior partner Lareina Yee and her co-author, partner Mina Alaghband, point to a discernable gender gap in metaverse leadership.
Analyzing a range of data on the early-stage metaverse, Lareina Yee found that women are just as likely to spend time in the metaverse as men, and are more likely than men to spearhead metaverse initiatives.
BUT: Leadership, the gender gap reflects one that exists in Fortune 500 companies, where less than 10 percent of CEOs are women.
The AllStarsWomen DAO, is a platform offering all the resources women need to thrive in their careers or their venture journey with a comprehensive ecosystem comprised of; A Startup Factory, providing special women centric leadership mentoring programs, in collaboration with our partners Mission Impact, and access to an accelerator program with selected companies receiving funding. The focus is on diversity and inclusion and making women thrive.
Not only as part of this community, but as a more broader ambition, my mission is to encourage women to be active in the web3 space and experience web3, nfts and the metaverse themselves to capture the opportunity for their future growth. To achieve my mission, I am engaged in a number of initiatives supporting women to become mindful leaders.
As an expert advisor, how do you help companies create and operate their Metaverse and Web3 strategy? Can you briefly tell us about the process? We first start with a workshop to discover and ideate what the company is trying to achieve.
Every innovation has to be based upon the purpose of the company, what are they good at and what are their core believes.
1. Define your goals. Why do you want to be part of the metaverse? If your brand’s consumers are there, do you want to increase awareness among new audiences, newly position your brand or increase the loyality for your existing customers for the near term, the primary goal of brands shouldn’t be driving sales directly, since sales of virtual items are still far smaller than sales of physical ones. Today’s metaverse audiences, especially on online entertainment platforms like Roblox,
often attract younger audience- a way to capture the NextGen and meet them where they are active.
2. Identify the virtual spaces, where there is the right fit. Right now, Roblox, Fortnite, Decentral and, Minecraft, and Meta’s Horizon Worlds are just a few of the metaverse games and platforms. Some will be better than others for specific purposes. Consider building your virtual world. There is ample opportunity to experiment with multiple platforms to see what works. For example, the luxury brand Gucci has conducted multiple brand activations to figure out where and how
NOT ONLY AS PART OF THIS COMMUNITY, BUT AS A MORE BROADER AMBITION, MY MISSION IS TO ENCOURAGE WOMEN TO BE ACTIVE IN THE WEB3 SPACE AND EXPERIENCE WEB3, NFTS AND THE METAVERSE THEMSELVES TO CAPTURE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR THEIR FUTURE GROWTH
to connect with Gen Z. Last year, it drew 19.9 million visitors in two weeks when it launched a metaverse version of its real-world Gucci Garden on Roblox. Gucci has also partnered with the fashion-focused metaverse Zepeto, announced plans to launch a virtual world on the blockchain-based platform The Sandbox, and created assets for games including The Sims, Pokémon GO, and Animal Crossing.
3. Create experiences, which are innovative. Consumers consider brands, which are active in the metaverse as innovative, and the experiences delivered so far by big fashion brand like Nike through their acquisition with RFTK and Gucci are highly innovative. Therefore, the bar for delivering innovative experiences is high. Companies need to determine the ideal balance between native advertising, immersive experiences (including games, virtual stores, events, and sponsorships), and real-world activations to complement the metaverse. In addition, they need to consider, how they want to create a roadmap and connect with their web2 offering- for example through physical goods ordered in the metaverse and NFTs.
4. Experiment with models, which generate revenues. Nike through RFTK has earned $181 million. Direct sales may not be front and center on the metaverse right now, but that doesn’t mean brands shouldn’t be thinking ahead and planning to capture the future potential. Direct-to-avatar sales of virtual goods are already a $54 billion market, and some forward-thinking brands are testing different opportunities to generate
revenues. Forever 21, for example, sells a beanie in Roblox for under a dollar. For the high end, luxury fashion- virtual fashion is also more sustainable way of interaction with brands. Nike is trying out unique NFTs with its release of Nike Cryptokicks (a virtual model of its Nike Dunk sneakers), designed by the creative studio RTFKT, which Nike acquired in December. Nike also released a hoodie with virtual augmented wings (to be used in virtual worlds and a real hoodie) and just recently created their own marketplace, where everyone can become a creator.
5. Rethink how you measure marketing success. Critical to measure the returns on marketing, but the appropriate metrics for the metaverse will depend on a different matrix using behavioral analytics- also bearing in mind that we are at a very early stage. The most important part is creating a community, where new experiences can be evolved by the community rather than the brand.
What is your secret to striking a worklife balance?
I like to be outdoors and enjoy nature, spending times with friends and family and reading books. Being with people of all ages, is the most energizing and inspiring for me.
One piece of advice you would like to give to aspiring women leaders. Be passionate about what you do and how you do it. Surround yourself with mindful people, who give you good energy and from whom you learn- take a risk and be prepared to fail to enter new territories to learn from the experience.
How have IT security practices changed in the last decade? What other security trends will impact the global business landscape in the near future?
In the last decade, there has been a large shift in protective focal areas from those that are network centric to those that are more core in nature. Networks have become more difficult
to protect, perimeters have disappeared, data centers and co-locations facilities have shifted into cloud environments, virtualization and containerization have become production level players, and many employees are working remotely, in some cases on their own devices. To be successful security practices have adapted to these changes, but the secure
The social engineering tactics, techniques and procedures of today are sophisticated combinations of technology with knowledge of human emotions/psychology
Andres Andreu is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at 2U, Inc and a Boardroom Certified Qualified Technology Expert (QTE). His career has spanned multiple industries, from federal government to the entrepreneurial journey in the cybersecurity product space. Andres is a mentor, an advisor to multiple start-ups, and a published author of a book, two patents and multiple magazine articles.
Andres served the USA in the field of Lawful Intercept Information Technology. He was the recipient of three U.S. Department of Justice awards. He spent a decade at Ogilvy & Mather, rising to become a partner and global Chief Application Architect. Andres then consulted for numerous high-profile organizations and eventually became a founding member, CISO and Chief Technology Officer, of Bayshore Networks (acquired by Opswat in 2021).
In a recent chat with Digital First Magazine, Andres Andreu sheds light on the evolution of IT security practices in the last 10 years, the emerging trends to watch out for in the future, challenges faced by him as a CISO leader, personal strengths, and a lot more. Following are the excerpts from the interview.
enclaves of the past are gone. Now our challenge is to secure environments that are far more exposed than ever before.
One trend is that applications and Application Programming Interfaces (API) have become the foundations for entire businesses. These Layer 7 entities are unique in terms of what is needed to actively protect them. Another trend is that the humans (i.e., employees, executives, etc.) of a given organization now make up the easiest pathway
for nefarious actors. Social engineering, against those human targets, has become the predominant first step for sophisticated attack campaigns. Of course, the sophisticated technical attacks come after, but the path of least resistance has become our co-workers.
Another major trend as of late is based on the realization that anything other than granular access control is no longer adequate. The technology to provide relief in this area is known as Zero Trust (ZT). Also known as Zero Trust Network Architecture (ZTNA) the core concept is to trust nothing and verify everything. This technology aims at protecting environments by using strong authentication, network segmentation, Layer 7 protections, and granular “least access” policies.
Having recorded experience as Global Cybersecurity Executive and Boardroom Certified Qualified Technology Expert, how would you describe cyber security trends and innovation?
The trends revolve around three major areas: humans becoming the initial targets of attacks, the use of intelligent systems, and the growing use of cloud technologies. Humans now represent the easiest path into target environments. So, attackers are migrating away from technical pathways because humans represent easier prey. The social engineering tactics, techniques and procedures of today are sophisticated combinations of technology with knowledge of human emotions/psychology.
The use of intelligent systems can add value to attackers in multiple ways. One example is the identification of patterns within software systems. These patterns can
Once cybersecurity is seen as a business issue, whether from the perspective of enablement or that of revenue protection, we can jointly work towards organizational success
expose weaknesses allowing attackers to construct smart, subjective attacks against those discovered weaknesses.
Innovations are generally taking place around the creation of intelligent systems. The application of artificial intelligence, and machine learning techniques, to the security space is a large area of innovation. This is important because there is evidence of cyber criminals having these capabilities. Given that development, the defenders need the same kind of computing capabilities in order to keep pace. Thankfully there is innovation in this space and the chess game of cybersecurity continues.
Another area of innovation is in the protective technologies created for cloud technology stacks. The capabilities range from configuration analysis to permission analysis to providing a single pane of glass solution that provides a unified view of disparate cloud stacks.
A traditional security tool is ineffective against new and evolving threats. What is your take on this? How is application security different from a traditional one? Traditional security tools reflected the original players in the information security (infosec) space. These players were generally network and/or system administrators that migrated into infosec. Those that came from networking naturally addressed things from a networking perspective as opposed to a core, code level perspective. Those original solutions made sense to these folks and generally revolved around the notion of letting traffic into an environment, or not. The catch was that they
didn’t let the traffic in securely; they merely kept overt bad traffic out. This is why the early days of remote application exploiting were so easy for attackers, our original devices were not designed to stop them. The system administrators aimed at keeping operating systems patched, again often missing the intricacies of the applications themselves.
Over time more people from software engineering backgrounds got drawn into infosec or what that has evolved into, cybersecurity. That was my path. Application security (appsec) is a complex space, and to quote myself (https://andresandreu. tech/humble-appsec-perspective-from-anold-school-practitioner/) on this subject: “Appsec is a journey. One that you either wholeheartedly embrace or don’t bother at all.” This journey spans secure coding, pen testing, code reviews, dynamic / static application security testing (DAST / SAST), Application Programming Interface (API) security, devsecops, and so many other facets. All of these areas that comprise a mature appsec program are radically different from the capabilities, and beyond the scope, of traditional security tools. It’s just a foreign world in comparison to the infosec traditions of the past.
An organization’s cyber security threats need to be identified, analyzed, evaluated, and addressed as part of cyber risk management. What challenges do you face when heading and being a part of a management team? One challenge generally revolves around getting people, who are typically focused on
One of the realities about cybersecurity is that it is for the most part a vertical agnostic practice. As such knowledge gained in one vertical is most likely very applicable in another vertical
revenue and business, to synchronize with us around cybersecurity no longer being a technology centric issue. Once cybersecurity is seen as a business issue, whether from the perspective of enablement or that of revenue protection, we can jointly work towards organizational success. This brings along with it a lot of debt due to years of security
being seen purely as a technology issue. Change of this type takes time.
Another challenge is that of translating cyber/ technical risk into business risk. Management, the C-Suite and/or the board do not speak cyber risk. This puts the onus of translating, and mapping, cyber risks to a vernacular that those business centric entities can understand and relate to. As part of the management team, I have the challenge of fiduciary responsibility and need to ensure that dollars are being sent appropriately addressing and mitigating subjective areas of risk. By subjective I clearly mean threat and risk areas that are real to the environment I am protecting.
Your impressive career has been marked by learning and security. What are your strengths in assisting high-quality online education and services ranging from free courses to degree programs?
My strength is the fact that I am holistically responsible for security at edX / 2U. Today, as a 2U, Inc. company (Nasdaq: TWOU), edX connects over 46 million ambitious learners with the skills, knowledge, and support to achieve their goals. Together with the world’s leading universities and companies, edX offers thousands of free and open courses, professional certificates, boot camps, creditbearing micro credentials and undergraduate and graduate degrees.
The cybersecurity industry is fueled by partnerships and our respective networks of professionals. This field is very difficult
to navigate without a solid network of professionals and their respective perspectives, advice, and knowledge. My philosophy is that being humble is paramount and seeking out advice from competent professionals is not something that should be frowned upon. I find that effective paths towards building these relationships are getting involved with start-up focused venture capital firms as well as becoming a contributing member of professional organizations
I am personally very involved with Forgepoint Capital’s Cybersecurity Advisory Council, Team 8’s Village, the Cybersecurity Collaborative, Evanta’s NY/ DC CISO communities, and multiple other organizations where I regularly participate in panel discussions. Each one of these entities provides for a bi-directional exchange of perspectives, advice, and ideas. This is truly about creating relationships that give and take. My peers provide amazing insights that
Ensuring that your vision and solution target real problems will provide you a healthy runway to build your business or organization
truly guide me in my professional endeavors. I try my best to reciprocate and add value to their endeavors.
What are the different verticals that you have worked with so far? How do you stay abreast of the periodic technological and industry changes in a constantly evolving world?
My career started in the federal government in the USA. I have also worked in the global
marketing/advertisement industry, consulted globally for a NGO, lived the startup to exit journey with a cybersecurity product company, and now work in the education technology space. One of the realities about cybersecurity is that it is for the most part a vertical agnostic practice. As such knowledge gained in one vertical is most likely very applicable in another vertical.
Constant education, and challenging myself, is simply a way of life. Staying on top of industry
trends and forward-looking patterns is a daily routine. For me to keep my organization safe I have to ensure my team(s) are always adapting to real world threats. Challenging myself to constantly grow as a professional keeps me sharp. This may come in the form of pursuing a relevant certification, speaking publicly, writing industry relevant content in my blog, etc. The sharper I am the more in tune with events I am, and in turn my teams are. Protecting our students, partners and employees is mission number one and we hold ourselves accountable to stay on that course.
As a successful business leader, what would your advice be to youngsters aspiring to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?
Specialize, focus, and make sure there is a real market for that which you are inventing/building/ selling. Too often start-ups pursue great ideas based on the “cool” factor, but this may not equate to something customers want or need. Ensuring that your vision and solution target real problems will provide you a healthy runway to build your business or organization. This is not only applicable to the entrepreneurial/start-up journey but in the corporate/business space as well. In this arena it is imperative that you ensure strategies and objectives are aligned with the subjective goals, and direction, of the business. This alignment
should give you a solid sense of where to focus your efforts.
Another piece of advice is that maturity matters in the modern world. Very often entrepreneurs and start-ups do not concern themselves with compliance efforts (ISO 27001, SOC-2, PCI DSS, UK Cyber Essentials, etc.) that provide externally validated proof of maturity. They see these efforts are applicable only to large organizations or those heavily regulated. But the modern world is coming around to the value of mature cybersecurity postures. If you have no proof of such maturity, you may not be eligible to even bid for certain business opportunities.
In my current role we are always innovating for the sake of providing the safest experience for our learners, instructors, and partners. Automation and proactivity play key roles in our forwardlooking goals. Automation on multiple fronts (attack detection, event analysis, etc.) allows us to scale effectively, especially in triaging and incident response exercises. Proactive protective measures (web applications firewalls, API gateways, etc.) minimize the attack surface on our customer facing solutions, essentially creating the safest environments for our students to learn and teachers to teach.
Website:
https://www.agridigital.io/
Headquarters: Sydney, Australia
Keyperson: Emma Weston, CEO & Co-Founder
About the Company: AgriDigital is an integrated commodity management solution for the global grains industry. It combines high-end technical and industry expertise with beautiful design and intuitive workflows to provide seamless solutions to complex commodity, logistical, risk, and customer management issues.
Website:
https://appen.com/
Headquarters: Chatswood, Australia
Keyperson: Armughan Ahmad, CEO
About the Company: Appen provides reliable training data to give organizations in technology, automotive, financial services, retail, healthcare, and governments the confidence to deploy world-class AI products.
Website:
https://www.armordoc.com/
Headquarters: New York, USA
Keyperson: Mike Hartman, CEO and Co-Founder
About the Company: ArmorDoc is an AI system that provides document management, data extraction, and signature recognition services for mortgage industries.
Website:
https://www.brainscanology.com/
Headquarters: California, USA
Keyperson: Dr. David H. Nguyen, Co-Founder and CEO
About the Company: BrainScanology, Inc. is a tech startup developing revolutionary shape analysis software that does not need to measure area or volume!
Website:
https://www.canva.com/
Headquarters: Perth, Australia
Keyperson: Melanie Perkins, CoFounder and CEO
About the Company: Canva is an Australian graphic design platform that is used to create social media graphics and presentations.
Website:
https://www.egistec.com/en/
Headquarters: Taipei City, Taiwan
Keyperson: Todd Lin, COO/CTO
About the Company: Egis Technology Inc. (Egis) specializes in the IC design, research and development, and the testing and sales of capacitive and lens type fingerprint sensors.
Website:
https://www.ethoslife.com/
Headquarters: California, USA
Keyperson: Peter Colis, Co-Founder and CEO
About the Company: Ethos is a technology company that makes getting life insurance easier, faster, and better for everyone.
Website:
https://www.graymatics.com/
Headquarters: Singapore
Keyperson: Abhijit Shanbhag, Founder and CEO
About the Company: Graymatics provides a cognitive multimedia analytics platform capable of transforming images and videos into meaningful granular data.
Website:
https://propseller.com/
Headquarters: Singapore
Keyperson: Adrien Jorge, Founder & CEO
About the Company: Propseller is a real estate agency that offers property owners a way to sell by combining in-house agents with technology.
Website:
https://www.zemanta.com/
Headquarters: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Keyperson: Andraž & Boštjan, Founders
About the Company: Zemanta is the world’s first multi-channel demandside platform built for engagement and performance.
The mortgage industry in the U.S. is one of the largest yet most antiquated industries still heavily reliant on humans for all types of mundane, repetitive tasks. This is not only inefficient but also leaves these tasks exposed to human error rates as high as 4%. With a huge number of documents, forms, and compliance directives that need to be accurately handled alongside
intensive knowledge-based expertise from their employees its becoming more transparent there are better solutions for these repetitive tasks. Not only is it difficult to manage large workforces, but it also puts humans at risk of downsizing during slow times, such as in the current post-pandemic inflationary crisis.
By integrating disruptive technologies such as AI and ML into mortgage workflows,
Mike Hartman, Founder and CEO
companies can benefit hugely in terms of reducing employees’ administrative workload and freeing them up to use their knowledge, skills, and expertise to better serve customers instead of worrying over mundane tasks such as document classification and data extraction.
Founded in 2021, ArmorDoc, Inc is a leading data science company combines Machine Learning with serverless cloud computing to classify/organize, extract data and identify stamps and signatures from sizable electronic mortgage loan packages one loan at a time or in very large bulk quantities. to quickly solve the problems of identifying missing documents, data integrity and identifying the “final/recorded” versions of documents at scale with accuracy and speed. This allows clients to focus on originating, purchasing, and servicing more loans with less pain. Everything ArmorDoc does is focused on removing the pain out of dealing with large quantities of mortgage documents/loan packages.
ArmorDoc is the brainchild of Founder and CEO Mike Hartman, a mortgage industry veteran. Having previously worked at Lehman
Brothers and JP Morgan pre-financial crisis and at financial service and technology companies post-crisis, Mike’s work was primarily focused on the quality of mortgage documents and data. Like him, other industry peers were also frustrated over the laborious process of document indexing and data extraction for a wide variety of mortgage documents. For someone who was and continues to be passionate about leveraging technology and challenging the decades-old status quo, Mike decided to take matters into his own hands and launched ArmorDoc.
As any new entrant into an industry, ArmorDoc invests in a lot of test cases and proof of concepts to prove the value of its solution with the confidence to enter into a champion challenge with any other existing provider of the same services. But being always open to challenges, ArmorDoc continues to stand its ground and empower clients with its remarkable services. Moreover, ArmorDoc’s technology is designed to perform “real-time” demos with never-before-seen documents providing complete transparency in its capabilities compared to those which “clean up” results post-processing. Founded
After researching existing service providers offering solutions to address document indexing and data extraction, Mike realized the existing solutions mostly leveraged OCR with a rules-driven approach which breaks down quickly with unstructured documents and requires human clean-up post-processing.
ArmorDoc is attacking these with a truly automated approach. Its core differentiator is leveraging the latest technologies in machine learning and cloud computing, allowing for the flexibility and scalability required to process unstructured documents in large volumes without any human intervention in their client deliverables. As a result, ArmorDoc’s partners benefit from fast, accurate, and scalable services while being cost-efficient.
A myth ArmorDoc is continuously proving to be incorrect is it is unattainable to achieve the accuracy levels without any human intervention. This is simply not the case. ArmorDoc is achieving greater than 97.5% accuracy versus human intervened results
which on average have anywhere from a 1%4% error rate. Not only is ArmorDoc able to achieve higher accuracy in their results but are also able to provide results 5x faster than human solutions making it a win-win for their clients.
Mike’s goal for ArmorDoc is to be the mortgage industry’s leading provider for document indexing, data extraction, and stamp/signature recognition models. “Unlike our competition, we wake up all day/every day focusing on three things and three things only,” states Mike. “Our mission is to be the mortgage industry’s number one provider of these three services, which allows us to remain laser-focused.”
Created for the Primary and Secondary Residential Mortgage Market, ArmorDoc’s clientele base includes Banks, Custodians, Hedge Funds, Investment Banks, Lenders/ Originators, Asset Managers, and Sub/MasterServicers. In addition, other service providers have seen the value in leveraging ArmorDoc’s document solutions to improve their own
downstream workflows improving efficiencies in their own deliverables to the same client base.
To cite an example of taking customer service to the next level, the team of ArmorDoc converted their pilot client, a very large mortgage fund, into a revenue-producing client and an equity partner. Recently, with a slowdown in mortgage originations, ArmorDoc has been focused on working with mortgage Servicers and Sub-Servicers, leveraging ArmorDoc’s services for the acquisition and onboarding of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) and with reverse mortgage participants streamlining the HUD Assignment process.
ArmorDoc has a US-based distributed workforce utilizing the latest communication tools such as Slack to maintain open communication and collaboration. This allows ArmorDoc to recruit top talent nationwide and allows employees the freedom to live wherever they want, as the focus is on execution, not facetime. Moreover, ArmorDoc’s culture is built around collaboration, communication, and
cohesiveness while ensuring all employees are empowered through the autonomy of executing without the need of micromanagement. The company has also adopted a 4.5-day work week unless client deadlines need to be met to avoid burnout. As a result, ArmorDoc’s employees continue to thrive in this environment which seems to be the new trend in working.
As a B2B company, ArmorDoc’s most powerful social media tool to reach its prospective client base has been LinkedIn. In addition, the company has benefited from the word-of-mouth referrals and the solid network that ArmorDoc’s Founder & CEO, Mike, has built in the mortgage industry for the last 15+ years.
ArmorDoc’s current focus remains on its three core competencies: document indexing, data extraction, and stamp/signature recognition for mortgage documents. As for the future, ArmorDoc plans to expand its service offerings through continued strategic partnerships and, even possibly, joint ventures.
Although social media is a dominant and fast-growing platform for communications, its use in crisis communication is relatively limited. The reason is, we often fear what we don’t know. While the use of social media to mitigate crises is no longer new, many organizations still aren’t prepared for it. With COVID-19 in the backdrop, people become more sensitive to any negative information,
making PR practitioners even more careful with their crisis communication effort (if any) on social media.
So, what makes a crisis communication effort on social media different?
Giving corrective responses at an unbeatable speed Crisis communication is all about speed and accuracy. During a crisis, what the public and
In an organizational reputation crisis, social media would be the go-to platform for hate comments as it is one of the few channels that offer two-way communication
Dr. Clāra Ly-Le is the Founder and Managing Director of EloQ Communications. With profound experience and in-depth academic knowledge in the communications industry, she is the first agency head to have a Comms doctoral degree in Vietnam. She has been involved in many successful public relations and integrated marketing projects at both national and regional scale. Dr. Ly-Le is an expert in crisis management. Withaprofoundunderstandingonthe local media landscape, backed by the extended pool of academic research, she has successfully coordinated EloQ Communications team to manage many crises from precrisis to post-crisis stage in Vietnam market. She has also worked with international companies to mitigate large-scale media crises and support them in recovering reputation.
stakeholders expect is a timely response from the organization. Corrective measures and statements must be delivered as fast as possible, and nothing can satisfy the public’s thirst for information more than social media.
However, social media speed can be a doubleedged sword. Good news travels fast, but, bad news travels even much faster on this platform. So organizations should make sure that the crisis
responses and information are accurate before publishing it to the public.
A response on social media will gain a wider audience than one on traditional media. Many may argue that publishing an official announcement on the company’s website or online newspapers is also very quick nowadays. So there’s no need to
release a response on social media that might be shared and misunderstood, right? Mainstream media would create a formal and credible vibe for the brand’s message; but social media make it friendlier and more relatable to stakeholders, allowing the message to spread faster among the community. At the end of the day, social media is where the discussions take place. In an organizational reputation crisis, social
media would be the go-to platform for hate comments as it is one of the few channels that offer two-way communication. The public wants their opinions to be heard and seen by the organization and other people.
Thus, giving a response on social media could show an organization’s willingness and activeness in addressing current issues. People are more likely to sympathize with a company and accept their crisis response if such a response is sincere and personal.
During crises, public sentiment would usually be negative. Many companies fear that social media could escalate this negativity; but on the contrary, social media could give insights into what the public is talking about the organization.
With social media, organizations can monitor public sentiment (which cannot be achieved via print or online articles) and analyze the audience’s concerns to address problems accordingly. From this data, organizations can also map out their crisis response plan to regain the public’s trust more effectively.
The nature of crisis communication is not about control. You cannot control or manipulate what the public says about your organization. Especially when their voices are empowered by social media. In fact, you can only prepare for and respond to crises.
During crises, the communication platforms that work best are all dependent on the organization and its stakeholders. Organizations should focus
Whether it is an organizational reputation crisis or a social crisis (such as COVID-19), an organization should show that they care for the wellbeing of their target audience
on the platforms that enable them to connect with the public. And during this time, such a platform is social media.
Don’t stay quiet and let the audience think for themselves because it could make the crisis worse. Initiate the conversation and state the organization’s viewpoint, apologize if you have to.
There’s a saying that I’d like to reiterate: “bring yourself to your audience”. You should try to be present. Try to say something, even though you don’t know what to say. You must own your narrative, or someone else will.
It’s natural to be questioned by the public during crises. Try to give an immediate response and clear out the misunderstanding (fake news); provide clear company guidelines in the specific situation to address the public’s concern. The audience can drive the narrative off-track if you don’t give a timely response.
Whether it is an organizational reputation crisis or a social crisis (such as COVID-19), an organization should show that they care for the wellbeing of their target audience. Furthermore, using social media gives off a more personal and intimate vibe than formal corporate announcements and press releases. Social media can deliver the response in a more empathetic way.
While an online crisis can hardly wait for a response to be approved by many levels of management, crisis managers can pre-draft templates for Twitter messages, Facebook posts or blog entries, with blank sections for the case details. The templates can be approved by the legal team beforehand so that the crisis team can disseminate the message on the appropriate platforms as soon as the details are confirmed.
Make sure that you take a look and re-evaluate to see if they fit the current context! If it is irrelevant and has the potential to upset stakeholders during crises, then it’s best to pause your promotion. That’s how you bring your audience’s attention to your social media platforms.
After a crisis, brace yourself for a longrun recovery. Society might remember the organization’s misconduct for a long time. Organizations can integrate social media listening during and after the crisis to monitor the public’s sentiment.
I will leave you with the final thought that a crisis is challenging, but it also comes with opportunities. Opportunities to review your brand health and your communication efforts, to monitor and gather the audience’s insights, to make suitable changes, so you will come out better and stronger than before.
Again, social media is only a tool, a quite useful and important tool, but how to use it efficiently depends on you. I hope that my suggestions are helpful to you, and you can adapt some of the ideas to your crisis communication plans.
Medical imaging, by definition, refers to several different technologies used to view the human body to diagnose, monitor, or treat medical conditions. Each type of technology gives different information about the area of the body being studied or treated, related to possible disease, injury, or the effectiveness of medical treatment. Starting
with the microscope, where cells were viewed for the first time, medical imaging has evolved dramatically over the years. It has reached new frontiers concerning both diagnosis of diseases as well as planning and monitoring treatment efficacy by using the application of artificial intelligence (AI). “The medical imaging market is worth USD 34 billion and is expanding, owing to the increased demand for
remote diagnostics due to COVID-19. Another driving force is the rapidly growing geriatric population. There is a shortage of radiologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists, so rapid and objective medical diagnostics are essential for healthcare systems,” says Dr. David H. Nguyen, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder, BrainScanology.
Dr. Nguyen is a computational biologist who invented an algorithm to measure shape without measuring area or volume. He has written five novel algorithms to quantify “randomness” in the architecture of tumors (ww.TSG-Lab.org), an approach no one else has computationally conceived before. In 2020, Dr. Nguyen established BrainScanology, Inc, collaborating with his former research intern, Harini Kumar, MBA, who is experienced in both scientific and consumer research with a profound
understanding of the current market space, key players and initiatives, and the overall business climate. Now the team is working on launching BrainScanology’s software, called ShapeGenie (www.ShapeGenie.net), which can measure shapes in ways that Deep Learning techniques in the field of computer vision cannot. It allows for the re-inclusion of human creativity in measuring biological shapes that correlate with sickness and disease. “Deep Learning requires the user to define ‘ground truth’ categories, meaning what is considered healthy and what is considered diseased. ShapeGenie, on the other hand, helps the user discover new ground truth categories hidden from the naked eye and Deep Learning. These new categories can then be taught to Deep Learning for rapid detection,” explains Dr. Nguyen.
ShapeGenie allows the user to specify which organ shapes to measure. The results are highly interpretable, allowing the physician to explain to a patient what features were measured and why. “Deep Learning models struggle with interpretability because they are excellent at distinguishing between healthy and diseased patients but do so in a way humans do not comprehend,” adds Dr. Nguyen.
BrainScanology, Inc is a technology startup developing ground-breaking shape analysis software that does not require area or volume measurements. It develops software that allows doctors to measure complex biological shapes to better understand diseases imaged by MRI, CT, X-ray, and ultrasound. Dr. Nguyen says, “We are developing our software as a SaaS product available for all fields of science to do shape analysis: from agricultural engineering to home appliance design, to medical diagnostics, to aerospace engineering.”
Brainscanology, Inc. is a technology startup developing ground-breaking shape analysis software that does not require area or volume measurements
www.ShapeGenie.net
BrainScanology’s ShapeGenie software is scheduled to release a minimum viable product (MVP) version in January 2023. ShapeGenie has already provided early adopters with consulting services to test its efficacy for their research. “ShapeGenie will be a cloud-based software (a “SaaS service”) to which users will be able to subscribe, upload their images, and then download the analysis results. In addition to a ShapeGenie license, customers can purchase consulting services from BrainScanology staff on how to best apply ShapeGenie to specific research questions,” shares Harini. BrainScanology also offers a service for developing machine learning models that predict specific diseases based on customer image data.
BrainScanology distinguishes itself from competitors in the market since it has filed a PCT patent application for the use of the LCPC Transform in medical diagnostics ranging from the cellular to the organ to the organismal level (example: finger shapes). Dr. Nguyen states, “While we can build in traditional measures of area and volume in our software, our competitors cannot build in the LCPC Transform into their software.”
BrainScanology also collaborates with individual academic labs or medtech companies. Partners benefit from access to its shape analysis and research expertise. This is useful for creating custom machine learning models and applying for research grants. The company also provides free pilot studies to clients to demonstrate that they can measure what other techniques cannot. Dr. Nguyen adds, “They compare our results with their previous results to see ShapeGenie’s unmatched level of precision and efficacy.”
The idea of creating BrainScanology came after a series of tragic incidents in Dr. Nguyen’s life. It started with the death of Dr. Nguyen’s close college friend, named Thuan Trinh, who took his own life due to bipolar disorder. During the years of struggle that led to Trinh’s death, Dr. Nguyen was going through deep depression in his own life. At Trinh’s funeral, he made a promise to do something about bipolar disorder. Years after that, Dr. Nguyen’s favorite high school biology teacher, Duane Nichols, died of an aggressive form of colon cancer that had recurred three times. To commemorate his former mentor, who inspired him to study science in college, Dr. Nguyen spent many sleepless nights examining histopathology images of colon polyps to derive a statistical method to measure the subtleties of complex biological shapes.
After a week of scribbling and crumpled paper, the Linearized Compressed Polar Coordinates (LCPC) Transform was founded to honor Nichols at his memorial service. Informally, the LCPC Transform was dubbed the “Nguyen-Nichols Transform.” Nguyen eventually realized that the LCPC Transform could be used to quantify brain folds and thus measure the difference between healthy and diseased brains. Thus was born the concept of BrainScanology, David Nguyen and Harini Kumar’s first startup.
BrainScanology is only two years old, but it already has early adopters from the world’s top research institutions, with more joining
every week. Harini highlights, “Once our SaaS software is released in January of 2023, the number of subscribers will skyrocket because we will offer free subscriptions under a freemium model that allows users to test our software at a limited capacity.” The National Science Foundation invited the BrainScanology team to apply for an SBIR grant for their machine learning model that detects Alzheimer’s disease by analyzing brain MRIs. “This Alzheimer’s model will likely be our first go-to-market clinical decision support product for the USA in the coming years,” added Harini.
BrainScanology acknowledges its employees, even if they are interns. This manifests as coauthorship of presentations and reports. They also hold regular meetings to keep the team abreast of everyone’s progress and contributions. Nguyen mentions, “As a small company,
everyone’s contribution has a positive impact, so we make sure that everyone understands this, which helps them feel ownership of their work.” Individual interns can also pursue independent projects over the summer, allowing them to pursue different topics based on the company’s technology.
BrainScanology is preparing to discover unknown subtypes of many diseases in the coming years. Harini points out, “Once we get our SaaS software into the hands of many scientists, it will only be a matter of time when other labs make the same groundbreaking discoveries that we have been making over the past two years.” They are taking their technology directly to African countries to develop raceand sex-specific medical diagnostic AI in collaboration with local clinics. This is called the Medical AI for African Nations Initiative,
or MAfoAN (“mah-foh-anh”) Initiative (https://africamedicalai.wordpress.com/).
“Our technology is amazing. We don’t think that other countries should wait for the U.S. FDA to approve our technology before those countries can start benefiting from it if they have the imaging data and are willing to share it now,” added Harini.
Harini says, “Because we measure the shape and not signal intensity, our disease-specific machine learning models can work on images from older MRI machines and CT scans that provide low-resolution images. For example, our Alzheimer’s model is based on the shape of the lateral ventricles in the brain, which is a liquid space that appears obviously different than brain tissue in MRI scans.” Since low-resolution CT scans clearly show the shape of the lateral ventricles, their Alzheimer’s detection model may work well with a low-resolution CT scan, allowing potential Alzheimer’s patients easier access to brain imaging. CT scans are less expensive
and faster than MRIs, both of which are advantages.
The software developed by BrainScanology is more effective at detecting organ shape differences than area and volume differences, which can be used for machine learning models that can be applied across different populations of people. “This applies to many psychiatric diseases for which the current method of diagnosis is highly subjective and prolonged. We can cut diagnostic wait times by 10-50X,” underlined Dr. Nguyen.
Their software can generate diagnostic models based on ultrasound sonogram images, making it ideal for remote and rural areas. Since ultrasound images are so low in resolution, any machine learning models developed for MRI images will not work on ultrasound images. “However, this is not a problem for our technology if the shape of interest is visible in both an MRI and a sonogram. The science of machine learning and diagnostics is an iterative, self-correcting process that takes time to optimize, so now is the time to start,” concludes Dr. Nguyen.
Some novelty of artificial intelligence (AI) is announced on a weekly basis. It seems that there is a race, if not an arms race, to develop ever more powerful tools and models. Some 10 years ago, anyone wanting to do AI would find themselves digging into mathematical details and writing lots of code. In practical AI, where we want to solve a problem using AI, this has changed fundamentally.
The challenge of designing and setting up the hardware systems required for the heavy
computing requirements is done by the cloud providers. What used to take weeks of careful design and significant capital expense, is now a few clicks and a monthly invoice. In fact, the movement from capital to operating expenses and the ability to dynamically increase or decrease the number of servers you are using are the two primary reasons for the development of the cloud in the first place.
The third reason for having a cloud is the promise of ease-of-use as people can be anywhere in the world and still work on the same environment
The movement from capital to operating expenses and the ability to dynamically increase or decrease the number of servers you are using are the two primary reasons for the development of the cloud in the first place
Patrick heads the AI Division at Samsung SDSA. On the side of AI Engineering, he is responsible for Brightics AI Accelerator, a distributed AI training and automated ML product, and AutoLabel, an automatic image data annotation and modeling tool. On the side of AI Sciences, he leads the consulting group that makes AI models for our customers for many diverse use cases. Among his other responsibilities is to act as a visionary for the future of AI at Samsung. Before joining Samsung, Patrick spent 15 years as CEO at Algorithmica Technologies, a machine learning software company serving the chemicals and oil and gas industries. Prior to that, he was assistant professor of applied mathematics at Jacobs University in Germany, as well as a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Patrickobtainedhismachinelearning PhD in mathematics and his Masters in theoretical physics from University College London.
– the data and software do not have to move. This facilitates collaboration in dispersed teams and has been a boon during the pandemic.
Beyond making sure that the hardware is available, any cloud must provide cyber security – providing access only to authorized users and only to the resources meant for them. This is a point of contention as this has always been, and will remain, an arms race between people trying to circumvent this and people trying to make systems more secure. It is safe to say that the cloud is more secure than any on-premise data center. The simple reason is that most companies try to save money on the system administration staff whereas cloud providers have security specialists.
The topic of security is tightly connected with data privacy and data governance. Many data sets fall under the regulations of data privacy by which individuals have the right of control over how their data is collected and used. The precise rules
differ from country to country, making this a very complex field. Whether or not certain data analysts must have access to the data, or certain parts of the data, is also covered by this aspect.
Data governance addresses the need for high quality data. Data is of high quality if it is up-to-date, correct, uniform (e.g. same format), consistent (non-contradictory), complete (all important attributes are there), and representative for the situation to be modeled using AI. Assuring these items is not easy and may require multiple processing and validation steps. To keep track of where certain data came from or how it was generated, we often collect data about the data, so called meta-data. This must be managed as well and has given rise to the cottage industry of metadata management.
The final preparatory step before doing “real” AI is data labeling. This is where human experts in the vertical domain input some of their knowledge.
Labels are a type of data that cannot be collected from a machine like a sensor or a camera but must be provided by a human. An example would be to draw an outline around a traffic sign on a street photograph and to identify it as a stop sign – many such labeled images can then be used to train AI to identify stop signs.
As many AI and data practitioners know well, once we are at this point – having a secure, private,
labeled, and high-quality dataset – we have done over 80% of the human work in any AI project. This is why modern AI has recently been called data-centric AI. Traditional AI was obsessed with algorithms and mathematics and much of the literature focusses on those topics. Recently, it has become clear however that the success or failure of a real-world AI project rests squarely on the quality of the dataset. To abuse a common
The budding field of AI Ethics proposes many interesting ideas on how mitigate ethical risks in exposing AI models to the real world
adage, if you have an hour to do some AI, spend 55 minutes on cleaning your data and 5 minutes running an algorithm.
Making or training an AI model involves three basic steps. First, we transform the data into the most representative form suitable for the purpose of the AI model. This may involve generating more columns by combining existing columns of data or removing columns. These methods are known as feature engineering. Second, the best type of model is chosen from the large zoo of possible models in AI, known as model selection. Third, the parameters of training method or algorithm must be tuned to the model and dataset, known as hyper-parameter tuning. The last two steps can only be done in trial-anderror fashion and account for most of the famous computational footprint of AI.
Dealing with the computational footprint can be made significantly more effective if the flow of data from the storage device to the computational device is made as smooth as possible. Several modern storage and retrieval systems have been built to accommodate this. Coordinating several computers into a cluster is helpful and so orchestration software is necessary.
To track the decisions made and lessons learned during feature engineering, we may use a feature store. To coordinate all the trials in selecting the model and tuning the parameters, we often use an experiment tracking tool. Ultimately, we select a model as the final outcome of the process. As any data set is going to grow over time, we will most likely go through this process every few weeks or months and so a sequence of models will result. A model management tool is used to track what models were made and which models are currently in use. To put models to use,
we must have a model deployment mechanism depending on our application. Especially when using many models in many distributed devices, model management is crucial.
When a model is used out in the wild, as we like to say, it should be monitored. The reason is what is known as model drift. The model is, of course, a static entity but the world is not. The real-life data that the model is exposed to will be somewhat different – and may become more and more different as time goes by – than the training data. The accuracy suffers over time and the model eventually must be replaced. This is the domain of observability.
Often the users desire to know why a model gave a certain output and so AI models or outputs must be explainable. What this means depends highly on the problem that the model attempts to solve but it is often a descriptive text in human language somewhat akin to what we humans might call an explanation.
Finally, as responsible citizens, our models and applications should adhere to some ethical standards. The budding field of AI Ethics proposes many interesting ideas on how mitigate ethical risks in exposing AI models to the real world. Regulatory bodies around the world are currently legislating this and ethics is quickly becoming a requirement.
Instead of having to assemble all these 17 main topics with their dedicated tools and perhaps several more to have everything interoperate, clouds provide you with an ecosystem that already has many of these tools so that you can focus on building your model, instead of spending your time building the factory for building your model. These are the elements in the architecture of an AI Cloud.
Incepted in 2016, Graymatics is a leading cognitive multimedia processing company leveraging the best and deepest AI technologies for extracting deep insights and enabling compelling solutions around the installed CCTV base. Currently headquartered in Singapore, the company is renowned for its transformational technologies and their relevance in today’s urban and business safety landscape. Its core products are customized AI solutions
developed for various verticals such as digital marketing, security and surveillance, e-commerce, telecommunications, Internet-of-Things, the financial sector, crowd management, and smart cities.
“Our vision, mission, and purpose are to create a highly scalable platform that can collect actionable data from videos and images in the same manner that it is collected from text,” reveals CEO and Founder Abhijit Shanbhag.
Abhijit is a seasoned technopreneur known for his passion for solving real-world problems and making a difference using technology.
He began his entrepreneurial journey in 2001 by establishing Scintera Networks, another Silicon Valley venture that manufactures
semiconductors. Before that, he held several leadership positions in prestigious organizations like Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Morphics.
During his tenure in the United States, Abhijit noticed the need for video search and analytics tools. The proliferation of CCTVs in the urban and commercial landscape generated massive
Graymatics offers several competitive advantages over other products available in the market, which make its platform the best-inclass and unique
amounts of video content, which he turned into machine-readable data and offered a wide range of highly beneficial solutions. Graymatics was founded in Silicon Valley to solve this market gap. Its solutions are now combined with deep learning techniques to improve security and surveillance systems at a wide range of industrial sites and smart cities in countries such as India.
Graymatics offers several competitive advantages over other products available in the market, which make its platform the best-in-class and unique. The company offers the highest breadth of AI-powered video analytics in the industry and optimized middleware to support the maximum number of high-performance AI analytics processes within a much smaller computer hardware footprint. That makes Graymatics the brand with the lowest TCO for high-performance AI systems. Furthermore,
there is a versatility of deployment options, including edge, on-premises, cloud, or hybrid edge-to-cloud. Likewise, Graymatics’ platform comes with a sophisticated alert report engine, forensic search, and insightful dashboards. It can also be seamlessly integrated with a mobile app.
At Graymatics, all the video analytics solutions are developed upon extensive research and are tried and tested on various platforms to ensure nearly accurate results. Currently, Graymatics provides video analytics solutions, namely LabVista, Urban Vision, Vistamart, SiteInsights, G- Safe, and Puerto Vista, to various smart cities in India, and also smart spaces such as large organizational campuses, commercial buildings, highways, ports, airports, corporate clients such as Siemens, Hindustan Oil and Gas, and telecom carriers in India, as well as Singapore, Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea, to improve safety, security, customer experience, and operational efficiency. The company already has a presence in other APAC countries, as well as America, Europe, and the Middle East, and plans to further expand its footprints in those markets.
At Graymatics, clients are ensured complete transparency for the end-to-end deployments. The team offers exclusive SLAs to their clients & partners, which have intermediate to immediate response time whenever support is needed. In addition, Graymatics’ partners get exclusive pricing based on the volume of the project, such as free demo support, introductory workshops, individual certifications, cobranding, co-selling opportunities, and social media promotions.
“We always ensure the deployment is completed before the deadlines with our strong project management team, which does the detailed analysis and plans the project timelines,” states Abhijit. Moreover, extended annual maintenance is offered to clients as a part of the package depending on the project volume.
There is a diverse and inclusive culture at Graymatics that makes employees feel involved, valued, respected, and treated fairly. In addition, Abhijit and other senior management members of the company engage and interact with each member every quarter to understand any concerns or any improvement needed in the company’s working culture. Moreover, Graymatics offers upskilling opportunities to its employees to enhance their knowledge in key domains and deliver a better outcome by fulfilling the organizational goals. Likewise, the company has employee KPIs to measure and increase employee performance. Additional efforts are also made by the HR department, which organizes relationship-building activities for the entire team of Graymatics.
Abhijit recommends three powerful marketing strategies to start-up founders which have proved beneficial for Graymatics. To begin with, publishing solutions on Marketplaces like AWS, Intel, TCS Cubo, Huawei, Dell, IPI, and others is highly beneficial.
Second comes the PR & Marketing strategy, which helps build a social media presence, especially on LinkedIn, increasing media presence in potential new markets such as Europe with PR
Graymatics’ partners get exclusive pricing based on the volume of the project, such as free demo support, introductory workshops, individual certifications, co-branding, co-selling opportunities, and social media promotions
Some of the ongoing cutting-edge developments at Graymatics include work on the Smart Cities arena across the southern and eastern parts of India, building customized solutions for the transportation sector, building a customized, cloud-based Video Analytics platform called iVAaaS with great utility for telecom service providers, and a lot more
campaigns and becoming more involved through social media and networking events to create brand awareness around the company’s service portfolio. Lastly, introducing a customer referral system to incentivize customers that generate successful leads proves helpful in the long run. One of the ways in which customer referrals can be generated is by leveraging certified partners to introduce special pricing for platinum partners and offering discounts to clients who refer the company to an incoming client (post transaction).
From a seasoned technopreneur’s perspective, Abhijit points out that machine learning and AI tools are becoming more advanced. In the coming times, there will be even more usage of these technologies in tandem with video cameras. Therefore, a major trend to watch out for in the upcoming years will be the usage of video analytics as a smartphone app. Similarly, top-of-the-line video analytics technology will be deployed for urban management, retail businesses, sports, telemedicine, etc., to a greater extent in the future.
“We have seen only the tip of the iceberg as far as video AI deployment is concerned,” asserts Abhijit. “The emerging trends indicate that such advanced and constantly improving technologies will increasingly enhance the accuracy, reduce human error or oversight and act as force multipliers in various domains in 2023 and beyond.”
The team of Graymatics continues to work towards innovating and creating solutions that can benefit a greater range of users and real-life needs. Towards this end, the team is focusing on devising new avenues of ensuring public safety from pandemic infections. Some of the ongoing cutting-edge developments at Graymatics include work on the Smart Cities arena across the southern and eastern parts of India, building customized solutions for the transportation sector, building a customized, cloud-based Video Analytics platform called iVAaaS with great utility for telecom service providers, and a lot more.
“In the next five years, we plan to expand our reach across key global markets such as America, Europe, and the Middle East alongside strengthening and expanding our presence in the APAC countries,” concludes Abhijit.
Change is the only constant in manufacturing today. Disruption, innovation, and continual refinement of shopfloor processes are driving factors in today’s complex market landscape. Whether you make automotive components, office furniture, or industrial valves, you need to stay on top of trends and adapt. New strategies and actions must sync—and align with customer expectations.
Here are three tips to help you adapt to changing demands:
1. Improve supply chain agility: The disrupted supply chain has been a major headache for most manufacturers. Trade tariffs, bottlenecks and delays, geopolitical tensions, chip shortages, unavailability of cargo containers, and high costs of fuel have turned procurement into a game of chance—with unfavorable odds. Modern software,
Data insights help plan for contingencies and manage expectations. You’ll know the stock you need and when you can expect it to arrive
Pranish Kushare is a solution consulting professional with over 28 years of experience in the enterprise software market. Pranish has extensive experience in ERP Business Consulting, Operational Excellence, Digital Manufacturing, Supply Chain Optimization and supporting organizations with their Project Management and Industry 4.0 – Driving digital Transformation. Wide experience in developing best in class supply chain management strategies and solutions for many different industries in Manufacturing Sector. Pranish is Graduate in Production engineering & Masters in Energy Management along with M.B.A. in Finance and Operations. Prior to joining Infor, he worked at Kirloskar Oil Engines Ltd India and United Gulf Group in Saudi Arabia.
with artificial intelligence (AI)-driven analytics and full supply chain visibility, can provide relief. Smart solutions will help you make smart decisions, anticipate risks, make strategic choices, and forge new partnerships. Data insights help plan for contingencies and manage expectations. You’ll know the stock you need and when you can expect it to arrive.
Manufacturers must meet the demands of customers for highly personalized products. But, you still need to control costs and improve margins. In many industries, traditional mass production is being replaced by mixed mode manufacturing with highly configured products, engineer-to-order, and assemble-on-
demand operations becoming the new normal. Modern manufacturing software is essential for the transformation. It helps streamline processes, close gaps and keep workflows synchronized. The latest Industry 4.0 technologies provide critical tools—like smart sensors—for tracking
3. Leverage data insights: While answering consumer demand for new and personalized products, manufacturers must simultaneously strive to improve productivity, boost efficiency, automate processes, and strategically plan the use of resources. You have tough decisions to make. Modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software helps capture, track, and leverage data throughout the organisation. Using facts, not feelings or hunches, manufacturers can better align with customers, launch new product introductions, design and source appropriate parts and components, and track all costs. New strategies for remaining relevant and growing the business can now be planned and executed with a balance of long-term goals and short-term capacity and cash flow restraints. Data insights are key.
machine performance, output, quality control, and optimizing resources. Tools also help manage the existing workforce which must work smarter, not harder, to get the job done. Data insights help keep the shop floor running with orchestrated precision, because every part, every machine, and every work cycle matters.
To avoid threats to market share and profitability, manufacturers must stay alert and on top of the ever-evolving trends. You need to adopt modern, data-driven processes and turn to technology to help you introduce new products. Technology, such as modern cloud-deployed ERP solutions, help organisations quickly adapt to change, including starting new branches or divisions. This agility means you can now focus on green initiatives, offering new services or managing logistics. Manufacturing is being redefined, and software plays a major role in supporting the new era—from go-to-market strategies to supply chain planning and shop floor operations. It may be easier than your think—if you start in the right place.
Data insights help keep the shop floor running with orchestrated precision, because every part, every machine, and every work cycle matters
The word “agile” which is famously used in programming, came as a breakthrough technological change which brought the characterisation of tasks and implementing projects one by one with frequent audits and reassessment as the development went on. Considering the world is an ever-changing
place with new breakthroughs happening every single day, many discussions have taken place about the “new normal” and “future of skills”, What is that we see in common for our careers in each of them? For me, it’s this clear message“Time to be agile, and not fragile.”
Being agile in career development means that we think more about the quality, the
Maintaining an intersection between your perception and reality is essential and which must be backed by continuous audits
Nikhil Soi is a
Development Advisor at Hult International Business School, London, UK. With a considerable experience in international career development and employability management, in the past 10 years, Nikhil has been working extensively on the practical implementation of vocational education with research focused on building relevant skill sets in freshers and experienced professionals for generatingbettercareerdevelopment opportunities globally.
outcome, and self-development. The ones that are agile lay their focus on behavior, attitude, and learning. They focus on what to do next to be more efficient at what they do. This suggests that the ones that strive to be agile, they are focused on the thought process and behavior to foster continuous growth.
For 100s of years we’ve looked at a “ladder” to determine the idea of what a good career development looks like, but today with an ever-increasing demand of agility, this concept does not sync with our reality, we are in an era of waves and frequencies where our future is more fluid than fixed and our career advancement is defined by the transferrable skills that we possess from our previous experiences, learning the art of channeling those instilled skills in our next endeavour activates our brain which instigates brainstorming, creative thinking, and an agile mindset.
As stated, being agile is a matter of a behavioral change and not process change, considering which let’s try to reframe some management principles to build upon the concept of Agile thinking for Career Development -
1. Self-Awareness – Career exploration is an exciting process that is fuelled by curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Before you make decisions regarding your career, you should invest time in learning more about yourself. Self-reflection is an ongoing process; you do it all the time, in all aspects of your life. You are likely not the same person you were five years ago and will continue developing your strengths, skills, and experiences. Whether you are looking for an internship, a graduate opportunity, or a part-time job for some extra
Whether you are looking for an internship, a graduate opportunity, or a part-time job for some extra cash, the first step is to understand who you are and be confident in identifying your values, skills, interests, and motivations
cash, the first step is to understand who you are and be confident in identifying your values, skills, interests, and motivations.
2. Sanity vs Vanity Metrics – Once we become aware of ourselves, the next phase is ideating our personal brand. Your brand will either be shaped by you – or by others – is that a risk you’re willing to take? If not, then it is important that you build your brand with an intention and purpose. Sanity Metrics is all about analyzing our work, what we are doing well, where are the areas of improvement, and the process of examining those created assumptions. It helps us in managing our drawbacks and leverage our strengths. While, on the other hand, Vanity Metrics shows us what we want to see, remember the Harry Potter movie with a mirror, that shows us what we want to see as a future outcome, but that’s not always true it can mislead us to feel great. Maintaining an intersection between your perception and reality is essential and which must be backed by continuous audits. Perception Gap means the difference between how you are perceived by others (employer, teammates, professors, staff, customers, partners, members of your community, etc.) as a professional vs. the way you perceive yourself as an individual.
3. Think Big, Act Small - From an early age, we’ve been taught to “THINK BIG” in order to set a high bar to realize our full potential and to be successful in the goals that we set out to achieve. Thinking big is about impact. Thinking big is about changing things. Thinking big is about revolution. While, on the
other hand, starting small is about envisioning a roadmap, it is crucial because you have to sell your big idea. A big idea is only attractive and engaging if there is a slight chance that it is possible. Being agile means validating and testing early. Agile people are biased toward action, value collaboration, driven by curiosity, and act to manage changes in real time. Envisioning a roadmap would require some knowledge about the complexity of realizing your idea and the courage of executing it. You don’t have to know all the intricate details, but you have to see a path that others don’t see.
4. What, Why, and How - The world of today is volatile and turbulent with changes coming out of nowhere and with huge impacts. It’s anything but stable and predictable. Conceptualizing what kind of a career am I seeking, why this career and how is it achievable will help with continuous improvement in one’s ability to build a meaningful and engaging career pipeline. Let’s try to break it down –
● What – Setting SMART objectives and acquiring the skills to achieve those objectives. Reflect on who you are and what you ultimately want from your working life. Research job paths, leverage networking opportunities, and consult with a mentor.
● Why – Outlining a long-term vision for your career opens doors to self-actualization. Planning lets you to be proactive in developing those essential skills, you start envisioning your next steps and practically get a longer runway to course correct if there’s a surprise waiting.
● How – Prototyping is a great technique to help you with decision-making, evaluating
the market potential, consulting on developmental opportunities, and practicing knowledge sharing elevates understanding of pathways one can pursue to achieve the desired outcome.
5. Responding, not Reacting - Although with agility, we have to be quick on our toes, but that does not mean we don’t interpret the situation. Interpretation and running sprints, not marathons are key to success. Responding wisely to any situation displays a strong EQ level which certainly will help sustain us for a better future.
Conclusion:
Technical skills may help us in acquiring our desired role, but it is the humane skills that allow us to stay longer in that role, which
clearly states the importance of building interpersonal relationships with a diverse group of individuals we meet every day.
As humans we are always seeking likemindedness, people with similar interests, similar likes and dislikes, and similar motivations, what we forget is there’s an opportunity cost attached to everything while the like-minded people will give us a purpose and help us in our development, the focused group will hamper our Agility, the sole purpose of Agile career development is when we allow ourselves to explore potential opportunities which are not obvious and build our professional presence holistically, hence being open to feedback, learning continuously and growing with every experience is imperative in today’s ever-changing and challenging environment.
Conceptualizing what kind of a career am I seeking, why this career and how is it achievable will help with continuous improvement in one’s ability to build a meaningful and engaging career pipeline
