Digital Bulletin - Issue 09 - October 2019 by NODE

Issue 9 | Oct ’19

COMPLETE COMMUNICATION Making the case for a channel-less future

U-BLOX

BIG IN DATA

Anthony Scriffignano, one of the world’s pre-eminent data scientists, talks Big Data, AI and Alice In Wonderland

Putting security at the heart of IoT

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

FACEBOOK IS ENTERING THE WEARABLES MARKET IN A BIG WAY Facebook is reportedly teaming up with Ray-Ban to produce two new pairs of smart glasses. The first, codenamed Stella, will function like that of Snapâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spectacles, allowing users to record and stream their surroundings. The second is a more far-out, fully AR pair called Orion. If that wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enough, Facebook is also developing its own voice assistant to work seamlessly with the glasses. 18/09/19 MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read. A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

he explosion of data is giving enterprise a headache. Everyone knows that there is huge value to be had from leveraging large data lakes and data silos held by enterprise. But many companies find themselves overwhelmed by the ever-increasing quantities of data they hold. Factor in new governance rules laid down by GDPR and the like – and the prospect of multi-million dollar fines for breaking protocol – and you can see why many are looking at data as an obstacle, rather than an opportunity. It is one of many issues addressed by this month’s cover star, Anthony Scriffignano, Chief Data Scientist at Dun & Bradstreet. “In computer science, there is what is known as a Red Queen Problem, which comes from Alice in Wonderland, during which Alice says to the Red Queen: ‘this is a really odd place, I’m running and running and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere’. The Queen replies:

‘That’s the kind of place this is, you have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are’,” he says. “With a lot of this regulation we find ourselves in a Red Queen Problem, we can’t stop running, stop everything and assess the regulations and figure out how to comply with it and start up again, you always have to keep running.” Elsewhere, he discusses the role of AI in developing valuable data, deep learning and how to stay one step ahead of the “bad guys”. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the technology industry or a young graduate just starting out, there’s something for everyone to get their teeth into. This month, we also speak with Smooch co-founder Mike Gozzo about ‘channel-less’ communication, selling Smooch to Zendesk and the rise of chatbots. We hope you enjoy the newest issue of Digital Bulletin.

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PUBLISHING

MEDIA PRODUCTION

DIGITAL MARKETING

Los Angeles, California IBM is working with the City of Los Angeles and the LA Cyber Lab to help local businesses collaborate to fight cybercrime

INSIDE VIEW

CONTENTS

3 08

DATA & SECURITY DUN & BRADSTREET Enabling data strategies

FUTURE SMOOCH Messaging and the enterprise

20 30

NETWORKS U-BLOX Securing IoT

38 AI

PEOPLE.AI Oleg Rogynskyy, CEO at People.Ai, answers our questions

64 46 EVENTS

SERVICES

TARGUS From accessories to software innovation

PEOPLE SNOW SOFTWARE The ascent of the CIO

The biggest and best technology events for your diary

CLOSING BULLETIN

An exclusive column from Joe Baguley, VP & CTO at VMware

DATA & SECURITY

A LIFE IN DATA Digital Bulletin speaks all things data in an exclusive interview with the Chief Data Scientist of the Year 2018, and Chief Data Scientist at Dun & Bradstreet, Anthony Scriffignano AUTHOR: James Henderson

DIGITAL BULLETIN

DUN & BRADSTREET

un & Bradstreet is an organisation that sits in rarefied air; the company provides commercial data, analytics and business insight services for around 90% of the Fortune 500 companies, a group that accounts for something in the region of two thirds of the U.S. GDP. The backbone of the company is its Data Cloud, which Dun & Bradstreet says is the most detailed of its kind. Comprising over 330 million business

records, more than 120 million hierarchy members, and with 375 million data elements updated every day, it provides a depth and breadth of business information that is arguably unrivalled. The data is used by some of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading organisations to make decisions on credit risk, vendor management, marketing and lead generation, compliance and master data management. The man behind the numbers is the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chief Data Scientist Anthony

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The first thing the best bad guys will do if they suspect that they’re being watched is change their behaviour” Anthony Scriffgnano, Chief Data Scientist at Dun & Bradstreet Scriffgnano, who is something of a legend in the data community. Scriffgnano, who was recognised as the U.S. Chief Data Scientist of the Year 2018 by the Chief Data Officer Club, is routinely invited to provide thought leadership for senior executives and high-level government officials globally. Recently, he briefed the US National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and contributed to three separate reports to the President, on Big Data Analytics, Emerging Technologies Strategic Vision, and Internet and Communications Resilience. In short, he is a man in demand. All of which means that when Digital Bulletin was offered the chance to pick 10

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Scriffgnano’s brains on all things data, we jumped at the chance. Speaking from Dun & Bradstreet’s HQ in Millburn, New Jersey, Scriffgnano says he has worked in every part of the organisation that touches data over the last two decades, “which is just another way of saying I’m old,” he jokes. “We’ve been doing big data since before big data was a term, way before. We curate arguably the largest global database of its type, which is updated millions of times a day. It comes from hundreds of countries where there are different laws, languages and rules around data localisation,” he says.

DUN & BRADSTREET

“We have to be on top of all of that, while data regulation is changing all over the world, so our data strategy is pretty much focused on governance, compliance and quality.” Scriffgnano breaks off from the narrative, keen to address an untruth about how Dun & Bradstreet collects, processes and uses its vast records of data. “A lot of the data that we have never gets seen outside of these four walls, but there’s a common misconception that we just buy a load of data from around the world and put it in a database and sell it – nothing could be further from the truth. “We have to make a lot of the data through imprints, triangulation, adjudication, and we take great information from data that never gets exposed, like signals and detailed pieces of trade information that simply can’t leave the company. “There is a huge effort that goes into making sense of data to uncover opportunity and risk, fraud adjudication, and patterns of behaviour.” Score settled, Scriffgnano moves on to the increasing role of disruptive technology and how it can be utilised in the field of big data. He is effusive in his belief in artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is being leveraged in the world of data, listing off a number of use cases carried out by Dun & Bradstreet. ISSUE 9

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

PALO ALTO NETWORKS TO SNAP UP IOT SECURITY FIRM ZINGBOX FOR $75M Cybersecurity powerhouse Palo Alto Networks has announced it intends to acquire Zingbox - an IoT security startup - for $75 million. Zingbox joins PureSec, Twistlock and Demisto as newly acquired young companies absorbed by Palo Alto Networks, which is modernising its position rapidly via M&A. Palo Altoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stock wobbled on the news before rising sharply on the back of strong quarterly results. 05/09/19 MORE ON THIS STORY

DUN & BRADSTREET

“We are using AI to curate the data, which again looks at triangulation around the truth and can be very helpful to use conversational linguistics,” he says. “We’re also using something called semantic disambiguation, which is looking at unstructured data and trying to discern which elements of what we think are true are true, because not all data comes nicely packaged with a dictionary that tells you how to use it. “Most of the really good stuff is raw and you have to be able to use it in that form - AI is extremely useful for that.” Scriffgnano and his team are also using AI for advanced anomaly detection in a bid to work out what the “bad guys” will do next. “The first thing the best bad guys will do if they suspect that they’re being watched is change their behaviour. If you’re just doing simple modelling on prior bad behaviour, you’re going to be

modelling on ways that the bad guys no longer behave. It’s called an observer effect,” he says. “AI and solutions that are not improvised – so not based on the past – can be extremely helpful in finding emerging types of behaviour that might represent new maleficence. So, advanced anomaly detection is absolutely being revolutionised by not only the availability of data, but also the availability of compute power. “Deep learning is a great example of that; it is not a super new concept, but you need an awful lot of data and an awful lot of horsepower to do something like that, and we didn’t have that available to us when these ideas were being conceived. There were examples but they were really theoretical, but the results we’re seeing now are real.” But away from Dun & Bradstreet, companies are finding it difficult to come to ISSUE 9

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terms with what could be considered – to the likes of Scriffgnano, at least – pretty elementary data challenges. He riffs on a number of topics, including the challenge of aligning cloud and data strategies, but settles on data silos as an issue to drill down into. “Companies are absolutely struggling. Almost every single day I talk to someone that has an issue where there’s a corpus of data that would help that issue, but they either don’t have access, don’t know about it or can’t see it, and the list goes on. And many times, this 14

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is in the same enterprise, which is even sadder. And this happens in corporate America, it happens in academia, medical research - it happens everywhere,” he says. “Sometimes siloing is a necessary evil to protect privacy or legal considerations, very often it’s just noise or the way we set up our systems, or departments not communicating very well, so a lot of siloing happens by accident. “The challenge is that data is increasing at an immeasurable rate; data begets data, so this whole data is the new

DUN & BRADSTREET

Almost every single day I talk to someone that has an issue where there’s a corpus of data that would help”

oil thing is silly, because oil does not beget oil.” Scriffgnano asks himself rhetorically: “So what do you do about it?” He breaks data down into three buckets: the data a company has and can be seen; the data a company knows exists and can access if it’s prepared to invest time and resource; and data that is simply not accessible. “When you’re talking about problems, you want to try to get an estimate of the size and the quality of each of those corpora of data. If we’re going to make

a decision about enterprise risk and you know that there is data sitting in the office, you have to decide whether going and getting it is going to change the decision you’re going to make or not,” says Scriffgnano. “Companies can’t start the conversations saying: ‘okay, let’s bring all the data together’, there’s too much data and they don’t have time, so you have to purposefully choose the data you want, and you have to know what you didn’t use and why you didn’t use it. That is the best strategy I can advise.” ISSUE 9

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My advice is to be humble, because the problem you’re working on is very likely to be bigger than it looks”

DIGITAL BULLETIN

DUN & BRADSTREET

Another factor companies are struggling to get to grips with is the ever-changing landscape of data governance, rules and regulations, says Scriffgnano, who draws parallels with a theory first discussed in Alice in Wonderland, no less. “There are a number of GDPR-like regulations around the world, and companies that ignore them will find themselves in a lot of trouble,” he says. “In computer science, there is what is known as a Red Queen Problem, which comes from Alice in Wonderland, during which Alice says to the Red Queen: ‘this is a really odd place, I’m running and running and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere’. The Queen replies: ‘That’s the kind of place this is, you have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are’. “With a lot of this regulation we find ourselves in a Red Queen Problem, we can’t stop running, stop everything and assess the regulations and figure out how to comply with it and start up again, you always have to keep running. “But what I would say is that everyone has been given notice. Companies need to step up what they’re doing and look at those broader issues. They need to develop a strategy that is inclusive of the regulations they are concerned about, but also includes future regulations that they know are going to

come. Otherwise you’ll never get out from behind it.” With the interview drawing to a close, Scriffgnano is keen to address the future and, in particular, a new generation of graduates and employees that will solve the data challenges of tomorrow. “We have to look forward because if we don’t we’ll just continue to have the same conversations,” he says. “My advice is to be humble, because the problem you’re working on is very likely to be bigger than it looks. Don’t be convinced that you have a view on everything, bring other people in and expand the table you’re working on. “Secondly, be minimalistic and break problems down into chunks. You’re not going to be able to implement AI across the enterprise, it’s too big an initiative, so think about what the problem is you are trying to solve and how is AI going to address those issues, what should you solve first, then break it down from there. “And lastly, when you’re driving ahead and solving problems, remember to pick your head up from timeto-time. I used to play water polo and while you might be able to swim faster by just keeping your head down, it does mean the ball is going to hit you in the head every now and then, which can be embarrassing.” ISSUE 9

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FUTURE

CHANNEL-LESS COMMUNICATION The way we engage with businesses is changing as messaging platforms become central to our lives. How is enterprise adapting? Smooch cofounder Mike Gozzo speaks with Digital Bulletin about ‘channel-less’ communication, selling Smooch to Zendesk and the rise of chatbots

AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

DIGITAL BULLETIN

SMOOCH

or years, marketers have obsessed over the concept of ‘omnichannel communication’. As consumers landed on more and more platforms, brands recognised the need to engage with them in those places. Yet the searing expectations of today’s customers are seeing leaders in this technology move away from omnichannel and towards a new trend in B2C communication: channel-less.

Mike Gozzo is a co-founder of Smooch, a company with technology capabilities in this field and one fresh from being acquired by customer services giant Zendesk. Gozzo believes that channel-less - where communication is standardised across all messaging platforms - gives people the relationships they desire with businesses. “What customers want is just to communicate with the company to get their

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You’ve probably heard of the concept of a central customer record, which is what the CRM industry has been selling for a very long time. What’s been missing from this central customer record is a central conversation record” Mike Gozzo, co-founder of Smooch job done,” he tells Digital Bulletin. “They have an expectation that they should be able to reach out to a company on the channel that’s most convenient for them, in terms of who they are and what they’re doing. Whoever they are, they need a channel that works for them.” This shift is reflected in the renewed focus of Facebook, owner of three of the most popular messaging platforms: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct. In a blog post from March, Mark Zuckerberg put these communication channels at the centre of his company’s privacy-based strategy. “I believe a privacy-focused communications platform 22

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SMOOCH

will become even more important than today’s open platforms,” he wrote. The numbers back up this assertion. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are growing at 30% year-on-year, outstripping Facebook itself. They have a combined user base of 1.6 billion people around the world according to Facebook’s own data from 2019 Q2. Libra, Facebook’s much-anticipated cryptocurrency, is purpose-built for this expanding private communications network. Enterprise cannot afford to ignore this trend - more than two thirds of consumers say messaging is their preferred way to communicate with businesses - but exactly how can companies ensure con-

sistent levels of service in this messaging labyrinth? That is where Smooch, with its channel-less approach, comes in. “It’s a big validating move when Facebook does this,” says Gozzo. “It provides a lot of opportunities for Zendesk and others in our space to really build on. We’re excited by these moves and it’s just one more piece of evidence that messaging is leading the world.” Smooch’s platform, the ‘Smooch Conversation Cloud’, gives developers the opportunity to add messaging and conversational capabilities to their software. It takes popular platforms, including Android and iOS services as well as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, and unifies them into a single format. Businesses then use its API to consolidate these channels, engage in dialogue with customers and organise the emerging data. Gozzo likens the process to a pipeline. At the top of the ‘pipe’, there is a layer of technology called a multi-channel translator that takes the different data representations the channels provide and encodes them in one common, universal format. This information is then associated with the customer and distributed to systems that need to access it. At the other end of the pipe, there is a set of business applications that need to consume or participate in ISSUE 9

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

WAYMO’S ROBOTAXI TRANSPORTED 6,200 PASSENGERS IN ITS FIRST MONTH Waymo transported more than 6,200 passengers during the first month of its pilot in California, demonstrating its potential to operate self-driving vehicles commercially. Although Waymo’s robotaxis (self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans) aren’t yet available to the public, the pilot, and the data it provided indicates a very real future for the services and an exciting opportunity for urban environments. 17/09/19 MORE ON THIS STORY

SMOOCH

conversations in order to get their job done. The result is an uncomplicated experience for the consumer, delivered across their preferred platforms by either human agents or chatbots. “What it means is that for brands who want to really have a human, intimate relationship with their customers through messaging, they can have it,” Gozzo explains. “They also know they have the back office support they need from an integration and connectivity perspective to plug it into all sorts of things that their business may be using.” He expands on the data point, saying integration with Smooch’s platform fundamentally enhances a company’s customer relationship management with a central conversation record. Smooch believes this helps build an ‘holistic customer profile’. “You’ve probably heard of the concept of a central customer record, which is what the CRM industry has been selling for a very long time,” Gozzo adds. “What’s been missing from this central customer record is a central conversation record. “As brands begin to have more complex and more long-lasting relationships with consumers, it becomes important to be really good at having a consistent record of conversations that you’re having, and

More than two thirds of consumers say messaging is their preferred way to communicate with businesses

for there to be a source of truth for this. Smooch is the platform that provides this source of truth, and we sell it primarily to brands that are looking to build on this and take advantage of this data in their own applications.” Smooch’s technology was born from an idea Gozzo and his fellow co-founders - Hamnett Hill and Warren Levitan - had while working on an innovation project at Radialpoint, a Montreal-based technical support company. Radialpoint’s 2016 acquisition by AppDirect generated the funds needed to spin out the idea and create Smooch. Interest in its product quickly grew but it was with one of its first customers, Zendesk, that Smooch would go ISSUE 9

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The most forward-thinking companies are thinking about how they use messaging to deliver their service. Food delivery companies, for example, will say, ‘how do we allow somebody to order a pizza or some tacos via messaging entirely, without having to download our app?”’ on to develop a close relationship. This ultimately resulted in Zendesk’s full acquisition of Smooch in May this year as it looked to enrich its customer support services - but it was a deal that Gozzo, Hill and Levitan were initially tentative to sanction. “Our first message to them was, ‘guys, it doesn’t make sense to buy our technology because we’re already selling you developer APIs and all the platform you need, you just need to adopt it better internally, and use it in more places in your product,’” reveals Gozzo. “But as we got deeper and deeper into their rationale for the acquisition, it became clear to us that not only were they aligned to the notion of keeping Smooch as an independent offering to the market so we can continue to grow the business that we love, but we’d also get the benefit of their resources and a lot of the technology they’ve been 26

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building. We can really build the CRM of the future and accelerate our product. “Zendesk takes a beautifully simple approach to customer experience management. They’re looking to build software that can get immediately adopted by businesses with the minimum of fuss, while providing awesome customer experiences.” As the customer service and messaging worlds see more crossover, Zendesk has strengthened its ties with WhatsApp, announcing its integration with the WhatsApp Business Solution at the beginning of August. This broadens its service, providing a direct WhatsApp phone number for companies using Zendesk and enabling customers to receive business notifications for the likes of purchase receipts, shipping changes or flight times. With WhatsApp used in over 180 countries globally, this is a key integration for

SMOOCH

Zendesk - and delivers validation for Gozzo, Smooch and the acquisition. “WhatsApp has been an incredibly powerful channel and right now Smooch, and therefore Zendesk, is powering more WhatsApp phone numbers than any other messaging provider on the planet,” Gozzo says. “We’re looking to bring all of the capabilities of WhatsApp to the 145,000 customers using Zendesk today, and so far it’s working really well for us.” Business communication via messaging is only going to proliferate and this will likely have a profound impact on the customer services sector. Humans remain important to the process but the scaling of chatbot technology will underpin the growth projected by Zendesk and others.

A recent survey from Salesforce revealed that 53% of service organisations expect to use chatbots within 18 months, representing a sharp growth rate of 136%. Gozzo puts this down to two factors. “One is the obvious cost savings of what you can achieve with a chatbot for many of the routine issues,” he explains. “But beyond that, there are a lot of businesses that are looking at chatbots as a new avenue for service delivery as a whole. “It’s not just a matter of offloading a customer service request; the most forward-thinking companies are thinking about how they use messaging to deliver their service. Food delivery companies, for example, will say, ‘how do we allow somebody to order a pizza or some

Facebook has changed its strategy to focus on private messaging ISSUE 9

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Over the next year or two, companies will begin to roll out purely conversational interfaces. That may be a mix of human and chatbot-powered at first, but it will speak to the notion of no apps, no website, just a conversationâ&#x20AC;?

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tacos via messaging entirely, without having to download our app?’ “Over the next year or two, companies will begin to roll out purely conversational interfaces. That may be a mix of human and chatbot-powered at first, but it will speak to the notion of no apps, no website, just a conversation.” Will these conversational interfaces of the future incorporate the holy grail of the chatbot industry: a truly humanised respondent? Gozzo thinks so eventually but not at the expense of the workforce. “It’s a real goal but you look at Hollywood and see these concepts of personal assistants who are emotional and knowledgeable AI agents - actually, I don’t think a chatbot has to be that at all,” Gozzo concludes. “There is a place for a type of application in our computing sphere where we interact over text and other UI elements in a message stream, rather than through a website or an app. I think that’s how we’re going to see chatbots develop; the move towards replacing humans is actually wrong. We need to think about chatbots as another type of application that we are developing in an acceptable and new way.”

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Securing the Internet of Things The proliferation of connectivity and data represents myriad opportunities, but no shortage of challenges, not least security

AUTHOR: James Henderson

he number of devices connected to the Internet, including the machines, sensors, and cameras that make up the Internet of Things (IoT), is set to explode over the coming years, as is the amount of data produced. A forecast made earlier this year by the International Data Corporation estimates that there will be 41.6 billion connected IoT devices, or â&#x20AC;&#x153;thingsâ&#x20AC;?, generating 79.4 zettabytes of data in 2025. This abun30

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dance of data and connectivity represents myriad opportunities, but also a number of real challenges, perhaps most pertinently that of security. u-blox is a company that has placed the challenge of making IoT and other data assets secure at the forefront of its ambitions. As co-founder of the business, Andreas Thiel has been with u-blox since it was established in 1997, playing a key role in its development from a small

U-BLOX

positioning company through to its IPO on the Swiss stock exchange in 2007. It then embarked on an aggressive expansion, acquiring more than a dozen companies in quick succession. Thiel, who today holds the position of Head of Product Centres, says the raft of acquisitions allowed u-blox to “really broaden the focus of the business”. “We started out really focused on positioning technology, and it remained

that way for around 10 years. We made a number of acquisitions that allowed us to broaden our business focus into cellular products, all the way from 2G to 5G today, and we later added wifi and Bluetooth activities,” he tells Digital Bulletin. “By adding connectivity products and technologies, what we did in effect was enter into the Internet of Things. When we started in this area it was known as end-to-end or machine-to-machine, so ISSUE 9

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‘Internet-tomachine’ – it’s now known as IoT or cloud technology, but it’s actually the same thing” Andreas Thiel, co-founder of u-blox really just machines that were connected to the Internet. “That’s how we used to know it, we referred to it as ‘internet-to-machine’ – it’s now known as IoT or cloud technology, but it’s actually the same thing.” The nature of the company’s product portfolio means security has to be at the heart of everything u-blox does. It is not, says Thiel, an isolated subject or team within the organisation, but rather the foundation on which its reputation and success is built. “Security crosses over with all aspects 32

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of what we do. As a provider of secure products, services and IoT solutions, this means that we start from ourselves as a company. We have increased our resilience against cyber-attacks and we routinely keep up to date with growing threats so we can protect our IP and the IP of our partners and customers,” he comments. “If we look at how this is reflected by the company, we work in a corporate security management structure, where we have one responsible person who is taking care of that and it is anchored by the executive committee. “It then breaks out into teams that oversee various subjects such as IT security, product security, site security of premises, and supply chain security where we interact with suppliers and external partners in production to make sure there is no compromise of the supply chain and products.” In that spirit of security-first thinking, u-blox recently sought to ‘redefine IoT security’ with the launch of a 5G-ready cellular module and chipset for low-power, wide-area IoT applications. The module, built on the u‑blox UBX‑R5 cellular chipset and the u‑blox M8 GNSS receiver chip, offers what the company claims is “unmatched” end‑to‑end security and long product availability, making it ideal for IoT applications with long‑term device deployments.

U-BLOX

The module also features a lightweight and low power pre‑shared key management system that is tailored to the needs of IoT applications, along with a comprehensive set of security features. “This is the first model that is built around our own chipset, and on the module, we’ve integrated a ‘hardware-based hood of trust’, which is a specific piece of silicon which is our anchor point for attaching various security features so in the end it enables secure communication from end-to-end,

from the edge to the cloud and backwards,” says Thiel. “The pre-shared key management system is very important in ensuring connections are secure and efficient. We have a secure library in the module that offers various functions that are used on our own software but can also be made available to our customers. “For example, you can imagine you want to secure some very sensitive data in the medical field; we can offer a secure vault where customers can store

There will be an estimated 41.6 billion connected devices worldwide by 2025

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FIVE GERMAN CITIES GET DEUTSCHE TELEKOM 5G Deutsche Telekom has turned on its 5G network in five German cities. Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, Darmstadt and Munich now each have operational 5G. This comes in the wake of Vodafone launching its rival service in July. Deutsche Telekom wants to install more than 300 antennae in Germany by the end of the year, with 5G also set to reach Hamburg and Leipzig. 05/09/19 MORE ON THIS STORY

U-BLOX

Everything that is impacted by security finds itself in a race between attackers and defenders and IoT is no different” data that cannot be accessed without authorisation. In addition, it is not something that is static, we can update and add more features throughout the lifetime of the product that can be delivered to the customers.” The launch, says Thiel, reflects the growing importance of industrial IoT. Rather than being a variant of a product developed for a mobile phone, the module has been purpose built for use in the industrial sector, specifically designed for robust longevity that u-blox believes is not represented by its competitors. u-blox has worked hand-in-hand with the Kudelski Group during the development and roll-out of the module. Thiel says the partnership with the dig-

ital security specialist has been “hugely important”. “Kudelski has a lot of experience in securing important assets on a grand scale, so it was very beneficial for us to work with a partner with a proven technology that can scale to very large volumes,” he adds. “Security is all about trust, so having a partner with established credibility in the market has been a great help and has helped us begin to establish ourselves in this environment. We know that its solutions are of a very high standard and have been established in the market for many years.” Working with clients from across various industry sectors, Thiel says that ISSUE 9

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The pre-shared key management system is very important in ensuring connections are secure and efficient”

the company sees wide fluctuations in terms of IoT security awareness – from almost total unawareness to in-depth knowledge and expertise – although he says as a general trend, people are becoming more aware of the pitfalls and are eager to learn and absorb new information. “We typically see that every company has a security expert, but at some companies that thinking is not at the forefront of product development and definition. It means that it can take some time for the message about the importance of security 36

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in an IoT context to land,” he comments. “But once we get into a positive dialogue, I think the customers appreciate that competence and are happy with a partner to help them assess where they stand, define the gaps and offer products that are sound and reliable.” An analogy is drawn with the learning curve that came with personal computers, when it took time for people to realise that anti-virus software was important, and that money and time needed to be set aside to ensure systems were as secure as possible.

U-BLOX

“Now we are at a time where it’s an integral commodity and it is part of the operating system itself. It’s just there and it works,” says Thiel. “With IoT, people have to learn that the security aspect is really important and it’s not something that is for free. The industry has to adapt the solutions and support them because security is limited by how often you can update it. “Our customers have to think about how they want to update in the field, so there are a lot of new elements about how these end-to-end, machine

learning communications have worked and how they will work moving forwards. One of our biggest challenges is to help our customers through this learning curve, but I’m sure we can do this successfully. “Everything that is impacted by security finds itself in a race between attackers and defenders and IoT is no different. The most important thing is that security isn’t a static feature; we have to continually develop, analyse and innovate so we can improve and react to new methods of attack.” ISSUE 9

SUPERCHARGING ENTERPRISE WITH AI Oleg Rogynskyy, CEO at People.Ai, speaks to Digital Bulletin about AIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in boosting productivity in the workplace, and how machine learning can help employees effectively analyse data

ould you briefly talk us through your career journey? I actually got my degree in Business Administration, Political Science and International Relations. After graduating, my first job was in sales for a company that pioneered in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) for enterprise back in 2006, called Nstein Technologies. This is where I fostered an interest in AI, NLP and machine learning and from there I moved to Lexalytics, where I saw the need for democratised, cloud-based analytics. 38

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I left Lexalytics and started Semantria which was later acquired by Lexalytics, before starting People.ai in 2016. How did you come to found People. ai and what were your reasons for believing in your proposition? Since starting out at Nstein, I have always been interested in how data-science, AI, NLP and machine learning can be combined and leveraged to boost human productivity and, having started my career in sales, I was aware of the pain points CRM can cause. I saw the need for reliable technology to help

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SALES AND MARKETING ARE TWO VERY PERSON-CENTRIC INDUSTRIES, YET BOTH SALESPEOPLE AND MARKETERS GET BOGGED DOWN WITH DATAHEAVY ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS” make the most of all of the data go-tomarket teams collect and that’s why I started People.ai. Could you provide an overview of People.ai’s product and services, and why you believe it stands out in the marketplace? We have three main products: The Revenue Intelligence System, Campaign360 and The Wire. These are all tailored to suit the needs of go-to-market teams. The Revenue Intelligence System automates the capture of all contact and customer activity data and automatically updates CRM to provide actionable intelligence across CRM to sales and marketing teams. Campaign360 gives 40

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marketing teams full visibility into the impact of their campaigns on pipeline, while The Wire gives sales reps personalised, actionable insights from their CRM to data to help them prioritise their day. Our platform is the only platform of its kind that automates data capture, provides real-time insights and augments the sales person with the next best course of action. Which industries are proving the most fertile for People.ai’s product and why? Our platform is designed for sales and marketing teams; two departments that are ubiquitous across the enterprise. Our platform is most effective when used by enterprise businesses with large go-to-

PEOPLE.AI

and marketing professionals when applied to areas of their work that are neglected â&#x20AC;&#x201C; such as creating actionable insights with the help of massive amounts of data. Without machine learning, these pools of data are too vast to be analysed by humans. Machine learning offers accessibility to overcome this challenge.

market teams that are able to collect large amounts of data. Sales and marketing are two very person-centric industries, yet both salespeople and marketers get bogged down with data-heavy administrative tasks. Our platform automates both sales and marketing teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s data capture and augments by using this data to provide intelligent insights to drive new revenue opportunities.

Of the many new technologies changing businesses, how vital will machine learning become in a data-centric enterprise? A data-centric enterprise often possesses large amounts of inaccessible data â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which is caused by the complexity of the data landscape. Machine learning, and namely People.ai products do, is able to turn big data into useful data. Any data-informed enterprise can be overwhelmed by the large amounts of information that they deal with on a daily basis. Machine learning helps to contextualise this massive pool of data to create actionable insights.

When and why did you first become interested in machine learning? I first became interested in machine learning when I started at Nstein. I saw the impact NLP could have on everyday processes, and I was fascinated by how much time it could save sales

What are the key advantages that machine learning can deliver for organisations? There are many benefits organisations can gain from implementing machine learning. Most notably, machine learning does not require a clearly defined task ISSUE 9

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

MCDONALD’S BRINGS SPEECH-BASED AI TO ITS DRIVE-THRUS McDonald’s has acquired Apprente in a bid to reinvent the fast-food experience. Apprente builds AI-powered voice automation services that can operate in multiple languages, lower waiting times, and greatly reduce costs. The company has been testing the technology in select locations, creating voice-activated drive-thrus that it said will offer “faster, simpler, and more accurate order taking.” 10/09/19 MORE ON THIS STORY

PEOPLE.AI

as it works intuitively, unlike other solutions. This means that a greater number of tasks can be completed digitally, leaving humans to spend their time on tasks that require strategy or creativity. What are the main barriers to machine learning adoption in enterprise? Businesses often struggle with cultural resistance from teams who believe implementing a solution like that will make their roles obsolete. In reality, the opposite is true. Adoption of machine learning can lead to better use of their time, focusing on more meaningful tasks instead of data-centric tasks. Another barrier is the skills gap in IT. Some companies believe that to implement and maintain the right solution, they first need to hire IT personnel fit for the task at hand. However, channel partners are well-equipped to provide this service and often come with a wealth of experience, having worked with other companies to implement the right solutions. What roles do humans have in a future where machine learning and AI become more prominent? Human roles in the workplace are evolving rapidly. The adoption of AI and machine learning mean that humans can now spend less time on tasks that are data-intense, repetitive, time-consum-

ing and quite frankly mundane. Instead they can focus their efforts on the more creative and strategic tasks that add more value. A study by the World Economic Forum reported that 65% of children who entered primary school in 2017 will eventually have jobs that do not exist yet. I find this very intriguing and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m confident that with the dawn of AI and machine-made decisions in the workplace, job roles will evolve to tap into creativity, interpersonal skills and other traits that are exclusive to humans. How is People.ai deploying machine learning techniques to improve its product and services? People.ai uses machine learning to enhance the sales ecosystem. Our offering helps organisations automate manual ISSUE 9

data entry and augment by understanding and recommending areas of improvement, such as deciding on who the highest value sales lead to pursue might be.The system works by ingesting data such as email, calendar, phone, WebEx, conference tools and other data sources and identifying common threads, then recommending the best next action of what it deems to be the best way to close a deal. Not only is the tech able to see what a salesperson did correctly, but it also learns to continue building a smarter system. 44

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What upcoming innovations (around machine learning or anything else) is People.ai focusing on? We’re focused on supercharging your sales, marketing and customer success teams by automating the processes that shouldn’t be taking valuable time, and then augmenting them with best next actions based on historical data to ensure all of your go-to-market teams are maximising their impact. The Wire is one of our latest innovations. It provides personalised, actionable insights, creating a real-time “to do list” that’s easy-to-consume and

PEOPLE.AI

Adoption of machine learning can lead to better use of their time, focusing on more meaningful tasks instead of data-centric tasksâ&#x20AC;?

provides the best next steps for your customer-facing teams (sales, marketing, customer success and others). It represents a deep understanding of your professional world and how your prospects, customers, and internal teams are engaging to drive revenue. What are the emerging trends that might impact upon People.ai and your industry? One trend that we have already seen drastically impact the enterprise technology industry as a whole already and that will continue to do so is the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;consumeri-

sationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of enterprise technology. In consumer tech, we have seen companies such as Uber be built on three pillars. Firstly, they collect activity data of their users. Secondly, they combine all this data into one big pool, before lastly, they analyse trends in this data to predict the next best course of actions for users to take. Our platform has been built on similar pillars and as consumer brands such as Uber develop new and innovative ways to leverage their data, enterprise tech companies will follow suit.

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SERVICES

EQUIPPED FOR THE FUTURE How Targus has moved from accessories into IoT software and workplace consultation for some of the world’s biggest companies AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

f you’re a businessperson working off multiple devices from an office and on the move, Targus will probably be a familiar brand. The Californian company has been a popular provider of computing and mobile peripherals for over 35 years, its logo emblazoned upon the backpacks, briefcases and accessories that enable the secure transportation and use of our personal technology. But at the beginning of 2019, Targus took to the Consumer Electronics Show 46

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in Las Vegas and revealed an exciting new arm to its business: the MiraLogic Workplace Intelligence System. An established leader in its own field of hardware, Targus’s announcement marked its first serious venture into software - more specifically, IoT (Internet of Things) software fit for the new wave of smart workspaces. In recent years, Targus has been improving its hardware to align with this strategic shift. Its portfolio now includes, among other accessories, IoT-enabled universal docking solutions, power

TARGUS

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We’ve never been in software before but we’re developing our own and it’s very important for us” strips and sensors. For Targus, the MiraLogic platform is the end that justifies the means, helping to deliver more effective and efficient working environments. “What we’re going towards now is a very new area for us and it’s quite exciting,” Atif Mahmood, Technical Director for EMEA, tells Digital Bulletin. “It’s interesting because the response I get from some customers is, ‘well, we know you guys for your bags. What is MiraLogic?’ 48

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“We’ve never been in software before but we’re developing our own and it’s very important for us. Businesses now want to understand a lot more about their real estate and optimise their flexible working strategies. Then you’ve got the whole analytics piece; understanding how our offices are used, how can we optimise offices, meeting rooms and office management - all of this is a new area that we’re heavily investing in.” MiraLogic creates a number of benefits for enterprise users, especially in

TARGUS

workspace utilisation and provisioning where it monitors and captures real-time and historical data from individual workstations - control and diagnostics and the measurement of energy consumption. Ron DeCamp, Targus’s VP of global product management and development, called MiraLogic’s launch a “huge step in making our workplaces more intelligent”. This leap forward is comparable to Targus’s own transformation journey. Technology has emerged as the company’s catalyst and Mahmood, who will

reach nine years with Targus in November, has been central to this transition. Over his time in different IT leadership roles, Targus has refactored its architecture and focused its work on data. “When I started there wasn’t a proper strategy as to how technology was implemented, and the processes involved with the technology were broken,” says Mahmood. “I was brought in to fix that and then translate into technology terms how we could facilitate our business better, facilitate the workforce and really get to a more methodical process state.” The transformation involved a shift to Microsoft’s cloud services and the digitisation of many administrative processes, such as invoicing. But it’s in the business intelligence discipline that Targus has engineered the most change. “We told the central HQ in the US, where most of our policies come from, that as a business in the market, we don’t really understand our customers and we don’t understand how our workforce is being productive,” adds Mahmood. “The analytics part is really important to us and we’re driving that a lot more. “With the business intelligence tools out on the market, it’s really transformed us and continues to do so. Reports are changing, analytics are changing, the way we respond to customers is changing, so it has made a huge differISSUE 9

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

IBM IS BRINGING QUANTUM COMPUTING TO THE MASSES IBM has announced that it will put quantum computing into the hands of thousands of users by making a 53-qubit quantum computer available to clients of its IBM Q Network. The machine will be part of IBMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new Quantum Computation Center - a data centre for quantum machines. The new system is scheduled to go online in the middle of the month before 14 more 20-qubit computers join in November. 19/09/19 MORE ON THIS STORY

TARGUS

MiraLogic from Targus ence, especially over the last five or six years.” A desire for customer centrality has been the motivation behind the internal and external transformation at Targus. Its distribution channels and clients include major retailers, corporations and educational institutions, as well as 90% of the Fortune 1000 companies. Mahmood works on a consultative and advisory level with its largest enterprise customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Targus - which has developed a specialism in universal docking stations - looks to equip these businesses to deal with a changing workforce; one that is not only used to smart office

spaces but is increasingly demanding more flexibility around working hours and location. “For us, the biggest shift we’ve seen is in remote working policies and flexible working,” explains Mahmood. “It’s a trend across Europe, as well as in Australia and the US, and we’re seeing it in parts of Asia now as well. But the dynamics involved in the UK are very different to France or Switzerland, for example. Then you have the Middle East and South Africa - all of these places have different policies in terms of how they view the workplace. “Now it’s all about the customer intimacy for us; what the customer needs and what the focus is around how it’s develISSUE 9

SERVICES

The MiraLogic Workplace Intelligence System Real-time insights. Real-world management

No more struggling to understand how individual workstations are performing. MiraLogic WIS monitors and captures real-time and historical data of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening at the desk level - providing you actionable insights into occupancy, performance and efficiency

Faster fixes with remote control & diagnostics

Real-time data quickly alerts IT about equipment issues - before thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a problem - saving time, money, and lost productivity. IT administrators can now remotely manage the workspace with the ability to perform power cycle resets and firmware updates to the Targus Universal Smart Dock

Makes asset management a breeze

MiraLogic WIS automatically discovers and inventories peripherals connected to the Universal Smart Dock

The power to manage power

Are there devices in your workspaces unnecessarily powered through the night? Across your enterprise? How much is that costing you? MiraLogic WIS answers these questions so you can optimise energy consumption at each desk and improve the bottom line

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TARGUS

Now it’s all about the customer intimacy for us; what the customer needs and what the focus is around how it’s developing its business. It’s very important for us to work closely with the end users” oping its business. It’s very important for us to work closely with the end users.” This often involves bouncing customers from different industries off each other in an effort to find the right solution. Mahmood admits that, with each organisation’s setup and strategies different to the next, Targus can’t always hit the right note on its own. “I try to bridge our customers together because everybody is learning,” he says. “Sometimes we don’t know what the solution is. If someone has already had a successful deployment in a digital transformation exercise, we like to promote that across different verticals. We’ll bring those customers together and let them talk amongst each other. “What I see across the enterprise customers is that they all have the same challenges. They’re all trying to transform the way they work but there are risks asso-

ciated with making big changes because the way we work has really changed from traditional offices to remote working.” Research indicates that this move to remote working isn’t slowing down. Previously a divisive subject, a weight of evidence is emerging that illustrates the benefits of this approach and more companies are incorporating positive remote working policies. Stanford University conducted a twoyear study on 500 workers at Ctrip, China’s largest travel agency, and found

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SERVICES

Reports are changing, analytics are changing, the way we respond to customers is changing”

that remote workers were more productive by an average of one full working day every week. Last year, there was also an estimated $5 billion in savings for companies with employees who worked remotely, according to data collected in the United States. These are compelling details but what do they mean for Targus? Mahmood says technology still holds the key to remote working being optimised at scale. “The connectivity piece is probably the 54

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most important,” he explains. “You can be out and about but if you don’t have the tools available then it’s hard. “Our laptops are changing, and you have tablets and your phone too. The one device we carry everywhere is our phone and it’s the one piece of equipment that is connected 24/7. With 5G coming out soon, all of these technologies come together and that’s a challenge. Then there is the security piece as well, which is very important.”

TARGUS

Back in the office, Mahmood says many of his clients are engaged in programmes aimed at refreshing the workplace. This is again driven by the demands of new generations of employees. His job is to point them in the direction of Targus’s smart office products and MiraLogic. “Younger generations expect digitised workspaces,” ends Mahmood. “The measurements are becoming more important - a number of years ago, we never had Waypoint devices in offices, for example.

“When you go through this transformation, you have the physical elements with the office space itself, and then you open it up into a flexible working environment with collaborative working spaces. All of these things are changing and we’re unique because we deal with enterprise accounts at a consultative level, therefore we get a good understanding of the challenges.”

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PEOPLE

RISE AND OF THE RISECIO

THE

The drive towards technology transformation and ubiquity of enterprise cloud has taken the CIO from the fringes of business to the centre of the c-suite

AUTHOR: JAMES HENDERSON

he role of technologists within the enterprise is changing at breakneck speed. An almost ubiquitous desire for digital transformation and the ‘cloudification’ of business has taken the CIOs and CTOs of the world from 56

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the fringes of organisations to the centre of the c-suite. Last year, Forbes Insights teamed up with Intel and VMware, speaking to more than 400 CIOs around the globe to get their perspective. Among the key

SNOW SOFTWARE

findings were that 80% of CIOs believe their role has increased in importance over the last five years. And compared with five years ago, CIOs believe their most important skill has changed from technology know-how

to contributing to corporate strategy. The golden age of technology is also taking CIOs ever closer to the top of the corporate ladder, with 70% saying that technological trends are increasing the chances of the CIO becoming the CEO. ISSUE 9

PEOPLE

As such, CIOs are expected to have a far broader set of skills, allowing them to think critically about not just technology but long-term business planning, corporate strategy, personnel and finance. Clearly, the role of CIO is more important than ever before, but with extra power comes extra responsibility and greater expectations. Having started his technology career more than two decades ago, Snow Software’s CIO Alastair Pooley is well placed to reflect on the revolution that has taken place. He started his technology journey working for a software publisher, while also writing a book about how to play computer games – “a bit of a dream come true for an 18-year-old” he says. From there he joined the ISP, Star Internet, in the late 1990s, as the dot com boom was taking off. “I really learnt masses from that, how the internet works, learning about systems running on Linux and Security Enhanced Linux, and understanding building blocks like DNS, networking and firewalls,” he tells Digital Bulletin. “It was while working there that we came up with the idea of scanning emails for viruses before it was sent to you. That’s a common thing now but back then it was revolutionary. I built 58

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Alastair Pooley, CIO at Snow Software what was the second ever message bounce mail server. A guy called Alex Ship built the software and the server and I was handed the instructions to build the second server and we ended up building six of them. “That went on to become a huge part of the company and was spun off in its own right to become MessageLabs, before it was sold to Symantec in 2008 for $700 million.” Having previously built hosting systems at Star to compete with AWS, Pooley changed tackwhen the company was acquired by Claranet, moving to Sophos and building its first SaaS ser-

SNOW SOFTWARE

We shut down a lot of data centres around the world, switched all of our customers to AWS, and really leveraged some massive benefits out of it” vice and running large-scale infrastructure, this time utilising AWS instead of trying to compete against it. It was, he says, a considered gamble that paid off in spades. “We shut down a lot of data centres around the world, switched all of our customers to AWS, and really leveraged some massive benefits out of it, including autoscaling, how you could spin resources up on demand and shut them down at night. “We were able to run four servers at night, but 40 during the day to deal with all of the queries, which saved several hundred thousand dollars a year, just

because we weren’t running static servers that often didn’t do anything. It was a real revelation what you could do with AWS.” Having been with the company for five years, ascending from Global Director of Data Centre Operations to Global VP – Infrastructure & Cloud Services, Pooley took over as Chief Information Officer at Snow Software in 2018, tasked with helping to ensure that the hundreds of billions of dollars on enterprise software is money well spent and confirming that organisations have the appropriate licenses for the software they use – not too many, not too few. ISSUE 9

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

DISNEY CEO RESIGNS FROM APPLE’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger has resigned from Apple’s board of directors, having joined in November of 2011. Neither has disclosed a reason, but with both companies releasing their own streaming services called “Disney+” and “Apple TV+” respectively, it’s easy to see how things could get awkward. The streaming war looms. 16/09/19 MORE ON THIS STORY

SNOW SOFTWARE

Snow Software was already on Pooley’s radar, he says, having used the company’s products at Sophos. There was potential, he believed, that was untapped. “I was actually one of its customers and was using the product, so when I spoke to it I knew what it was talking about, and equally knew that at Sophos we were using the product for more than it had been sold to us for. We were using it for searches for vulnerabilities in our software estate, so I felt it had a lot of potential that wasn’t being marketed,” he comments. “The last 18 months have been great fun. I like the fact we’re developing software that actually helps my function. I’m our own customer so I use the products internally to help the IT team, I can go and talk to the R&D team to suggest changes to the products, and I end up talking to customers as well, and talking to them as a peer can really help inform our product. “I also like the fact that being in a tech company you have great interaction with everybody and there is an understanding of what you’re trying to do in IT. It is a business that understands what we’re trying to do and the challenges we are trying to overcome.” After the whistle stop tour of his 20+ year technology journey, Pooley reflects on how the necessary skillset for a for-

ward-thinking CIO or CTO has changed, with them tasked with helping all areas of the business to achieve the overarching ambitions. “Whether it’s the CTO, CPO or CIO, you have to be a business leader, you’ve got to understand what the business is trying to achieve and where it’s going, as well as financial metrics and what customers want and what they’re saying. When we have a meeting here, everyone is truly engaged in a number of different areas. “For example, I go with the sales team to see customers in the US and it’s the kind of thing you have to do. If you have an area of knowledge and expertise the customer is interested in then you have to be comfortable going with ISSUE 9

PEOPLE

Whether it’s the CTO, CPO or CIO, you have to be a business leader, you’ve got to understand what the business is trying to achieve and where it’s going” them. That’s the same with marketing or any other area, it’s about looking at the business as a whole from the technology perspective.” It means that leading technology professionals require a breadth of knowledge taking in all corners of business to thrive, a step-change from years gone by when their focus was markedly narrower. Pooley believes that CIOs face a balance between making themselves well-informed about all areas of enterprise and spreading themselves too thin, but believes effective recruitment can help bridge the gap. “It is a challenge to have such a breadth of knowledge and to know what’s going on across all of these areas, and that’s definitely something that takes some ef62

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fort. Part of that is that you hire the right people, and people who can stay up to date in their areas of specialism. You have to be able to rely on them to talk to you about what’s happening. “It’s also important to make time to go to conferences and the like to stay up to date with what you’re doing. I was just at a Black Hat security conference – cyber security is a huge challenge that we need to educate workforces about and have a better understanding of – and events like that are so important” With a technology roadmap now becoming a central pillar of any successful company, Pooley addresses the trend towards technical knowledge and responsibilities in all areas of enterprise, not just IT departments. “If I speak with teams in the marketing departments, they have people who five or 10 years ago would have been part of the IT team. But because technology is now so ingrained in what teams do, that is now part of the job role. “You can have a conversation with guys in marketing teams about agile development methods, how weekly scrums are going, and their whole approach is what you’d expect from a software development team. The technology has become so pervasive in functions that you can’t just have it centralised in IT anymore.”

SNOW SOFTWARE

There is one issue, however, that Pooley says enterprises still look immediately to IT teams to help them with – cyber security. It is an area he considers to be one of the biggest challenges facing business today. “Everyone still turns to the IT team when it comes to cyber security. We are seeing increasing numbers of phishing attacks on us and employees, and that seems to be the most prevalent form of attack, rather than sending malware.It’s all about social

engineering and tricking people into doing things,” he comments. “That is a real challenge and we need to educate the workforce to be savvier and make them aware of what’s going on. The volume of compromised emails is running into hundreds of millions a month, and that’s just what is being reported. That’s a huge amount of money that is just going to criminals and that’s something we have to tackle head on.” ISSUE 9

EVENTS

EVENTS Digital Bulletin rounds up the industry events that are worth clearing your diary for...

AI DEVWORLD 2019 08â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10 OCTOBER, 2019 SAN JOSE CONVENTION CENTER AI DevWorld will be the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest artificial intelligence dev event with tracks covering chatbots, machine learning, open source AI libraries, AI for the enterprise, and deep AI/neural networks. This conference targets software engineers and data scientists who are looking for an introduction to AI as well as AI dev professionals looking for a landscape view on the newest AI technologies. Speakers include senior staff from the likes of IBM, Cisco and Facebook.

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OCTOBER â&#x20AC;&#x201C; NOVEMBER

API WORLD 2019 08â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10 OCTOBER, 2019 SAN JOSE CONVENTION CENTER API World is the first large-scale conference and expo with the goal of organising the new API economy. The API World 2019 Conference and Expo was created with the mission to be neutral and facilitate connections, knowledge, trust and business within the developer community of API providers and consumers. Hear from Fortune 500 tech executives and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs on how they planned, launched, and managed their API projects, both internal and external-facing. This event is ideal if you are a coder, a startup or an enterprise that consumes or provides multiple APIs.

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EVENTS

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION EXPO EUROPE 09–10 OCTOBER, 2019 EXCEL, LONDON, UK

ACRONIS GLOBAL CYBER SUMMIT 2019 13–16 OCTOBER, 2019 FONTAINEBLEAU MIAMI BEACH RESORT, MIAMI BEACH, FL

Digital Transformation EXPO Europe connects IT leaders, security specialists and data specialists with the solutions and services to evolve their digital transformation plans. The line is increasingly blurred between these three sectors. Digital Transformation EXPO Europe unites them for two days of learning, tech demos, training courses and showcases of next-generation products and solutions. This is a show for enterprise IT leaders, cyber security experts, AI technologists and everyone in between - including those involved in cloud and collaboration, IoT, DevSecOps and hacking, data insight, machine and deep learning and more.

Acronis is bringing together the world’s largest community of cyber protection professionals at a two-and-a-half-day conference committed to improving the protection of critical digital assets and systems. The Acronis Global Cyber Summit 2019 will be held at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach and it promises to be the must-attend event for IT infrastructure managers, CIOs, service providers, value-added resellers, ISVs, and developers. World-class speakers and front-line practitioners will share the insights, solutions and partnership opportunities that can protect modern tech infrastructures safe from a world of proliferating and increasingly complex cyber threats.

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OCTOBER – NOVEMBER

SPARK + AI SUMMIT 15–17 OCTOBER, 2019 AMSTERDAM RAI EXHIBITION AND CONVENTION CENTRE Combining Spark + AI topics, this conference is a “one-stop shop” for developers, data scientists, and tech executives seeking to apply the best tools in data and AI to build innovative products. Join more than 1,700 engineers, data scientists, AI experts, researchers, and business professionals for three days of in-depth learning and networking. The sessions and training at this conference will cover data engineering and data science content, along with best practices for productionizing AI: keeping training data fresh with stream processing, quality monitoring, testing, and serving models at a massive scale.

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EVENTS

THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CONFERENCE 17 OCTOBER, 2019 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS The Digital Transformation Conference Global Series brings together leaders spearheading digital initiatives in their organisations to offer insights into their digital transformations. Join digital business leaders as the event returns to Boston for the third time to navigate digital innovation with an event geared towards content enabling you to leave full of ideas to take away with you. The event agenda is built with keynote presentations, panel discussions, fireside chats, breakout sessions and exhibitions. Digital business leaders will share case studies, their challenges, success stories and a whole lot more.

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OCTOBER – NOVEMBER

WORLD CRYPTO CONFERENCE 29-31 OCTOBER, 2019 THE COSMOPOLITAN OF LAS VEGAS MWC19 LOS ANGELES 22–24 OCTOBER, 2019 LOS ANGELES CONVENTION CENTER MWC Los Angeles 2019 is one of the newest and fastest growing events in the U.S. that brings together leading companies and influential experts from all sectors within the mobile technology industry to advance Intelligent Connectivity – a fusion of 5G, IoT, AI and Big Data. MWC19 Los Angeles will offer the most dynamic technology exhibition and an inspiring conference programme that consists of industry leaders, influencers and emerging innovators.

Part of Vegas Blockchain Week, the World Crypto Conference sees executives, enthusiasts, and professionals from global enterprise companies, financial service providers, investment firms, traders, advisory & auditing institutions, blockchain focused startups, academic institutions, government policy advisors, and application developers descend on Las Vegas to discuss the most pressing topics facing this emerging industry. It will afford three days of intense discussions, product demos, expert keynote addresses and panel discussions with industry thought leaders.

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MICROSOFT IGNITE 04–08 NOVEMBER, 2019 ORANGE COUNTY CONVENTION CENTER, ORLANDO, FL Attendees to Microsoft’s Ignite event will learn innovative ways to build solutions and migrate and manage your infrastructure. Over the course of the week, attendees will be invited to connect with over 25,000 individuals focused on software development, security, architecture, and IT. Explore new hands-on experiences that will help you innovate in areas such as security, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure and development.

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OCTOBER â&#x20AC;&#x201C; NOVEMBER

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In a column exclusive to Digital Bulletin, Joe Baguley, VP & CTO at VMware, look at how workplace AI can learn lessons from the BYOD trend

he digital revolution of the employee experience continues; it started with workers bringing personal devices to work, quickly evolving into the consumerisation of apps. Now, emerging tech like artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way from the consumer realm into the office. Are IT teams taking the lead in empowering employees with AI technologies, such as machine learning and virtual assistants? Or will employees again lead the revolt and demand AI 72

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at work? Is AI the new bring-your-own (BYO) technology? Looking Back ‘Bring your own device’ (BYOD) started trending over a decade ago, but many IT organisations didn’t fully support the concept. Instead, some banned BYOD, while others adopted a limited BYOD policy. Despite the ban on consumer technologies at work, employees - including business executives - worked on their personal devices anyway. IT had to

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reckon with the impact on security and find solutions to manage new devices and operating systems. Mobile device management (MDM) was created to help manage BYOD. Then, to support additional consumer device types and applications, unified endpoint management hit the scene. As we look back, what started as a nuisance for IT turned out to be a powerful movement that now benefits both employees and businesses. IT now knows that empowering employees with secure and seamless access to any app on any device results in higher performing employees and businesses. According to Forbes Insights research, empowered employees across EMEA: spend 16% less time on manual processes; collaborate better (an increase of 15% against traditional employees); are twice as likely to say apps are important in accelerating decision making;

and are five times more likely to report gains in productivity. Fast forward to today, and we are now seeing the infiltration of consumer AI technologies in business. The employee demand is similar to BYOD, but the opportunity could be tremendous. A powerful example for AI and machine learning comes from Siza, a Dutch healthcare organisation that supports patients with physical, mental or multiple disabilities, as well as autism and non-congenital brain injuries. The company makes significant technology investments to empower patients to better organise their own lives. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We often talk about augmented healthcare as the new thing to ensure that we can build more technology into the healthcare processes,â&#x20AC;? says Jorrit Ebben, chief strategy and innovation officer at Siza. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What we try to do is introduce more data-driven decisions for our healthcare profesISSUE 9

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sionals—as an aid for them to do even better work.” Ebben outlines a specific use case of a patient who uses a wheelchair with an integrated respirator. If the wheelchair or respirator fails, the patient could be in life-threatening danger; AI can enable nursing staff to respond faster to these situations. “We can use AI and machine learning to predict whether his respirator is still going to work or not. And that’s the kind of stuff that we want to introduce to make sure that we can help patients earlier than they know that they need help,” Ebben comments. Back to the Future: AI at Work Alexa, Siri and other virtual assistants live in employees’ homes, ride with them to work and follow them on their phones. 74

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By 2021, there may be almost as many voice assistants as people, according to Ovum’s Digital Assistant and Voice AI-Capable Device Forecast: 2016-21. Furthermore, Gartner predicts that by 2022, 80% of smartphones shipped will have on-device AI capabilities. Following consumer adoption and changing attitudes, purpose-built smart assistants like Alexa for Business are paving the way for AI at work. Smart assistants naturally complement intelligent smartphone apps, such as Edison, formerly EasilyDo. Using predictive analytics and deep learning, these smart apps extract meaningful, actionable data in real-time. For example, Edison proactively notifies you when it’s time to leave based on traffic patterns and meeting start times. While these apps classify as consumer

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offerings, it’s easy to understand why employees want these tools at work. Additionally, home-based IoT technologies are entering offices. AI-powered tech like smart speakers, coffee machines, lights, thermostats and TVs easily add value in the workplace. After all, if they help make our home lives easier, why wouldn’t we adopt these valuable tools at work? Finally, users expect the same great digital experience at work as in their personal lives—or they won’t adopt. That means capitalising on productivity in ‘mobile moments’. The most frequent mobile moment happens within email. VMware Workspace ONE mobile flows, for example, make it easier for IT and development teams to build relevant workflows into email—the app users statistically use most. When combined, mobile flows and Workspace ONE Boxer enable users to complete multiple tasks from a single app (Boxer) on their mobile device. By deriving context from the content in an email in Boxer, mobile flows surface a notification for a user to act on. A powerful use case is field sales. Instead of waiting to get back to the office, intelligence inside Boxer automatically prompts reps to add notes to Salesforce without leaving the email application.

Despite the ban on consumer technologies at work, employees including business executives - worked on their personal devices anyway” A New Mindset For IT, AI presents an opportunity to move past the BYOD ‘let it happen’ mindset toward a new ‘invite and accelerate innovation’ mindset. By embracing AI at work, IT not only helps organisations to move ahead of the technology curve, it can both liberate workers and vault business paradigms forward. At breakneck speed, machine-driven technology helps employees better work with one another and serve customers. Imagine, then, how IT could empower collaboration and innovation by combining multiple AI applications. Intelligent workflows like this empower IT to improve employee experiences, optimise resources and strengthen security. By putting employees first and embracing ISSUE 9

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AI applications at work, IT leads innovation. And the likelihood of another BYOD-style revolution disappears. The Next Step Already, more than one in five businesses plan to deploy AI technologies by 2020, according to a PwC survey. To unlock the potential of AI for employees, IT should do the following: Organise for AI: establish an AI area of expertise within IT, as well as a supporting employee advocacy team. Focus on responsible AI. Leverage all possible data and devices. 76

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Optimise for AI: roll out small implementations quickly, gather feedback, revise and then quickly roll out again. Create Opportunities with AI: evaluate existing processes and rethink them with an AI mindset to improve personalisation, efficiency and service. So, Is AI the New BYOD? We know AI innovation has the potential to drive digital transformation faster than anyone imagined. And the potential benefits are hard to overlook. AI-powered automation saves workers time by reducing mundane, repetitive tasks,

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Following consumer adoption and changing attitudes, purpose-built smart assistants like Alexa for Business are paving the way for AI at workâ&#x20AC;?

freeing employees to spend more time solving the hardest challenges. But AI doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to follow BYODâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s path. BYOD became a security and management debacle for resistant IT organisations. But when IT got onboard and integrated BYO into their strategy, the gains were immense. Similarly, the true power of business AI will happen when IT integrates purpose-built AI into the employee toolset. To truly empower employees and bring value to businesses, IT has an exciting opportunity to leap ahead of worker demands and deliver true digital transformation. ISSUE 9

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