Jim Smith, General Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
By Jim Smith
Take a second to think about how much of our daily activity takes place online. And I don’t just mean at work. In 2012, $225 billion of retail purchases happened virtually. In the U.S., 55 percent of us book worldwide travel solely through the Internet. Even our personal relationships, from organizing social activities to calling our relatives across the country and overseas, are maintained on the web. The rise of the Internet Revolution has had such a profound impact on our lives that most of us can’t even imagine how the world would revolve without it.
Many of the activities we perform online – whether staying on top of the 24-hour news cycle or managing our bank accounts – are made possible by the Internet’s open architecture. The Internet Revolution was catalyzed by the establishing and adopting of open standards. Linux, Apache, PHP: these are just a few examples of standards that made it possible for us to do almost anything online. Continue Reading »
Jeanette Horan, CIO, IBM
By Jeanette Horan
Most CIOs will tell you that one of their top priorities is helping functions like sales, marketing, and HR stay agile, collaborative and equipped to make data-driven business decisions.
Take IBM for example. The information that IBM’s many departments need to do their jobs resides among more than one petabyte of Big Data (that’s one million megabytes). That’s a lot of data and business opportunities to be analyzed. For the past few years, IBM has called upon the cloud for business analytics to boost resource flexibility, departmental collaboration and enable faster, more informed business decisions.
At IBM we’ve been able to save $25 million over the past five years. Here’s what we’ve learned… Continue Reading »
Laurie Williams, Professor, Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University
By Laurie Williams
According to a recent IBM Tech Trends report, both educators and students view security as extremely important. In fact, 56 percent of students and 44 percent of educators ranked it as one of the top three issues the IT industry will face over the next two years. In addition, a UK government report said that it may take 20 years to address the current cybersecurity skills gaps.
To help try and change that, North CarolinaStateUniversity is partnering with IBM to help better prepare the next generation of engineers with a secure-by-design focus and curriculum.
Why dedicate so many resources to building cybersecurity skills? The world operates with interconnected systems and as technology progresses these systems will only proliferate. The linchpin to success in securing these systems is in the design stage – not at the end of the process. Continue Reading »
Takreem El-Tohamy, GM, IBM Middle East and Africa
By Takreem El-Tohamy
There’s a wonderful word in Swahili that I think expresses one of the imperatives for the future of Africa. The word is “harambee.” It means pulling together, collaborating and supporting each other. I believe that one of the key factors in the ability of African countries to create sustainable and equitable economic growth will be the emergence of innovation ecosystems. Harambee perfectly captures an essential element of such ecosystems—the ability of institutions and individuals to pull together and build a mutually supportive environment.
Innovation ecosystems are complex organisms that are difficult to create yet tremendously powerful when they work. Think Silicon Valley. They require a melding of all of the capabilities of governments, businesses, financiers, universities, and individuals. Together, these organizations and individuals provide the web of support that makes it easier for startups to launch and grow quickly, and for established companies to innovate more aggressively. With that kind of support, African entrepreneurs and businesses will find it easier to produce new products and services, or even create whole new industries. You can think of an innovation ecosystem as a collective intelligence—harnessed for the good of society. Continue Reading »
James Kobielus, Senior Program Director, Big Data Evangelist, IBM
By James Kobielus
Big Data is a bit like our solar system. It’s a brilliant system of information and analysis that emerges from the inchoate gas, dust, rocks and crystals known as “data.” Cloud computing is the galaxy wherein the stars, rocks, and particles exist and interact.
To play this analogy out, data scientists would be the astronomers. They’re the ones who explore the spinning, interconnected, system, much of which consists of scattered matter that we lump together under the term “unstructured.”
But what exactly is a data scientist? Simply put, the data scientist is among the most important developer in Big Data. The discipline includes statistical analysts, data miners, predictive modelers, computational linguists, and other professionals whose job is to find deep insights in large, complex data sets. You can’t unlock the full value of Big Data in your business if you don’t bring together your best and brightest data scientists and give them the tools they need to do their job with maximum productivity. Continue Reading »
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Lisa Seacat DeLuca, Software Engineer, Advanced Cloud Solutions; IBM Master Inventor
By Chris Nay
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Notice a pattern in these codes? Don’t feel bad if you don’t. They’re from 1994’s “Pac Man 2: The New Adventures.” The kids playing the game in the mid-1990s knew that they unlocked hidden levels, but probably didn’t notice a pattern either. But 12 year old Lisa DeLuca did. To the point she could correctly predict, and enter the next code without playing the game.
“Figuring out these codes made me think: I want to be around this kind of thing [when I grow up],” Lisa said.
What that “thing” turned into almost 20 years later is programming and patenting at IBM. Today, Lisa is a two-time Master Inventor with more than 300 patents filed, working on next-gen cloud applications for IBM’s Advanced Cloud Solutions. Continue Reading »
Craig Sowell, Vice President, IBM SmartCloud and Managed Services Marketing
By Craig Sowell
As we come to recognize the power of mobile, social and Big Data to deliver new forms of innovation and drive growth, a common, unifying element is the cloud.
Cloud computing is changing the way we live and do business. From how we enjoy music and movies to how we speed our transportation. Just look at how cloud is enabling innovation for Drivewyze, a company that provides a service for truckers that is comparable to the E-ZPass electronic toll-collection system available in 14 states from Indiana to Massachusetts.
But instead of speeding up congestion at tollbooths, Drivewyze enables truckers to avoid lengthy stops at the weigh stations where commercial truckers are required to check in. What makes this possible is enabling tablets, smartphones, or other in-cab devices with transponder-like functionality provided by the cloud. Continue Reading »
Charaka Kithulegoda, CIO, ING DIRECT
By Charaka Kithulegoda
It’s estimated that there are more smartphones on the planet than humans. By 2016, more than 10 billion smartphones will be in use around the global. And Canadians are leading that growth, with more than half of Canadian smartphone users banking from their mobile device – and that number grows even higher when looking at those between 18 – 34 years of age.
Our customers expect to be able to connect with their friends and family, browse and shop and of course, bank from their mobile devices. As the mobile marketplace continues to grow and expand, mobile banking is not just a convenient option for our clients, but a must have. So how do we provide our customers with easy access to their money at any time, wherever they are? Continue Reading »
Ben Goldhirsh, CEO, GOOD
By Ben Goldhirsh
Cloud computing is the new mantra for small businesses looking to go green.
That’s important because IT’s carbon footprint has been expanding. Between 2011 and 2020, carbon emissions for worldwide information communication technology (ICT) equipment and services are expected to double from 2 percent to 4 percent of total emissions, according to market research firm Verdantix.
Becoming a green business means more than just eliminating paper. It is about eliminating waste and reducing energy consumption. One easy step towards “going green” and significantly decreasing your carbon footprint is to eliminate or reduce energy-consuming on-premises equipment and move your IT to the cloud. Continue Reading »
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IBM CEO Ginni Rometty
In these early days of the 21st century, Big Data, analytics, cloud, mobile and social technologies are transforming our world. This new era of computing provides the instrumentation, interconnection and intelligence that make it possible to build a smarter planet. But, in order to do so, countries, cities, corporations and individuals need to rethink how they go about achieving their goals. Watch this video of IBM CEO Ginni Rometty laying out her vision of the path forward at the Council on Foreign Relations–and her Q&A session with the audience. Join the conversation here and on Twitter at #IBM and #CFRlive. Here’s the speech.
Join us tomorrow to discuss how enterprises can take advantage of today’s cutting-edge technologies to become more competitive. IBM social business leader Jen Okimoto will lead a Smarter Friday chat on IBM’s People for a Smarter Planet Facebook page from 8:00 AM-2:00 PM ET. IBM social business evangelist Sandy Carter will host a #P4SPchat from 12:00 PM-1:00 PM ET on Twitter.
