Why Is the Healthcare Industry Abuzz About Blockchain? Blockchain. A day doesn't seem to go by without seeing articles and discussions about the technology. According to PwC executive Seamus Cushley, approximately $1.4B has been invested in blockchain just last year. In Gartner's recent hype cycle for emerging technologies, blockchain is approaching the peak. It is considered by Gartner as one of the ‘Key platform-enabling technologies to track.' While there is a lot of ‘hype vs reality' discussions going on, there is no arguing that blockchain is being taken very seriously across industries and cannot be ignored. A large percentage of the discussion does seem to focus in the financial services industry. This is not surprising given blockchain's historic legacy (I know, a disruptive technology already has a legacy) with Bitcoin and crypto currencies. In my article, ... (more)

Sponsorship Opportunities @CloudExpo and @ExpoDX | #IoT #SmartCities #DigitalTransformation

22nd International Cloud Expo, taking place June 5-7, 2018, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, is co-located with the 1st DXWorld Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. Cloud computing is now being embraced by a majority of enterprises of all sizes. Yesterday's debate about public vs. private has transformed into the reality of hybrid cloud: a recent survey shows that 74% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy. Meanwhile, 94% of enterprises are using some form of XaaS - software, platform, and infrastructure as a service. Digital transformation is changing the face of business. The IDC predicts that enterprises will commit to a massive new scale of digital transformation, to stake out leadership positions in the "digital transformation economy." Cloud Expo | DXWorldEX... (more)

The Hotel California of #AI | @CloudExpo @ReneBuest #ArtificialIntelligence

In 1977, the Eagles released "Hotel California", a song about drugs and the effects an addiction has on people. Putting "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device" in the context of our digital lifestyle today we find a lot of truth. There is a reason why Google provides most of its services for free or why Amazon wants us to have an Echo in every home or why Facebook has become our directory of "friends." What looks pretty convenient is a threat. It is a threat to the end consumers but also a threat to the established economy. And even if we have the choice to check out any time - we will never leave. The Feast of the Beasts After already two decades, the Internet giants - speaking of Amazon, Google, Facebook, Alibaba and Baidu - are still collecting tons of data, filling their databases with information of everyone's knowledge, opinions, recommendations,... (more)

[session] Enterprise #DigitalTransformation | @CloudExpo #AI #DX #FinTech #SmartCities

Digital Transformation and the Modern Enterprise Digital Transformation (DX) is not a "one-size-fits all" strategy. Each organization needs to develop its own unique, long-term DX plan. It must do so by realizing that we now live in a data-driven age, and that technologies such as Cloud Computing, Big Data, the IoT, Cognitive Computing, and Blockchain are only tools. In her general session at 21st Cloud Expo, Rebecca Wanta will explain how the strategy must focus on DX and include a commitment from top management to create great IT jobs, monitor progress, and never forget that their enterprise is in a day-to-day battle for survival. Speaker Bio Rebecca Wanta sits on the Board of Directors of Calgary Scientific. She has served as CIO and CTO for PepsiCo (where she won the Chairman's Award), Wells Fargo, Best Buy, and MGM Resorts. She was named #4 among Top 50 Female... (more)

The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2018 | @ThingsExpo #DX #AI #ML #IoT

The time of year when crystal balls get a viewing and many pundits put out their annual predictions for the coming year. Copying off since 2012, rather than thinking up my own, I figured I’d regurgitate what many others expect to happen. Top 10 Cyber Security Predictions for 2018 – Infosec Institute kicks off this year’s Top 10, Top 10 list with a look back at their 2017 predictions (AI, IoT, etc.) and dives head first into 2018 noting that Ransomware will be the most dangerous threat to organizations worldwide; cryptocurrency will attract fraudsters looking to mine; cloud security will (again) be a top priority; cyber insurance will explode and cyber-bullying, especially for teenagers, is at the emergency stage. Cyber security predictions for 2018 – Information Age taps Mike McKee, CEO of insider threat management company ObserveIT, to offer his insight. Lack of ... (more)

Three Foundations of #DevOps | @DevOpsSummit #Serverless #Monitoring #DX

Speed, Quality, Impact - Building Success on the Three Foundations of DevOps Many organizations adopt DevOps to reduce cycle times and deliver software faster; some take on DevOps to drive higher quality and better end-user experience; others look to DevOps for a clearer line-of-sight to customers to drive better business impacts. In truth, these three foundations go together. In this power panel at @DevOpsSummit 21st Cloud Expo, moderated by DevOps Conference Co-Chair Andi Mann, industry experts will discuss how leading organizations build application success from all three of these foundations of DevOps - speed, quality, and impact. Panelists Bios: Andi Mann, Chief Technology Advocate at Splunk, is an accomplished digital business executive with extensive global expertise as a strategist, technologist, innovator, marketer, and communicator. For over 30 years across ... (more)

Do Robots Have Karma? | @ExpoDX #AI #ML #DX #DigitalTransformation

This month, an AI (artificial intelligence) system passed a medical exam in China for the first time. I wonder how its bedside manner will be?  In addition, Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to a robot named Sophia. With all these rapid advancements, I think it is time we explore the spiritual life of robots. Up till recently, programmers coded and configured algorithms, AI, automation and machine learning systems and took personal responsibility for all the code. Today, however, AI has escaped the confines of human oversight and has been empowered and employed to self-program, self-optimize, self-test, self-configure and self-learn. David Gunning writes, "Continued advances [in AI] promise to produce autonomous systems that will perceive, learn, decide, and act on their own." That's a problem, not only with me, but with Karma. A simplistic definition of Karma is a s... (more)

Robotic Process Automation and Workload Automation | @CloudExpo #AI #ML #DX

The Relationship Between Robotic Process Automation and Workload Automation By Tony Beeston Robotic process automation (RPA), a concept that has emerged over recent years, is still in a state of rapid evolution, existing without a clearly defined end-state or direction. As such, vendors are experimenting and pushing their products into uncharted waters - successfully or otherwise. Nonetheless, we can be sure that artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to develop and impact on automation solutions as whole, even if at the moment these capabilities do not frequently exist within the RPA space. Indeed, it is worth noting the ‘robotic' tag is something of a misnomer and refers primarily to the tool's ability to carry out repeatable executable tasks, not a form of AI. RPA is in fact most commonly used to emulate keystrokes; it runs through the applica... (more)

The Future of Automation | @DevOpsSummit #AI #ML #DX #DevOps #DigitalTransformation

Automating Progress: The Future of Automation By Chris Boorman We've all read the dystopian fiction, watched those apocalyptic movies and heard a myriad of prophetic warnings heralding our obsolescence. Surely now we're just a couple of years from flipping the switch on a Skynet of our own making and condemning mankind to the annals of history. Actually, we're not entirely sure what the future holds, but it's probably not fire and brimstone. For detractors and naysayers of technology, could there be a more fitting image than Terminator 2's opening shot? A hulking, skeletal, humanoid machine crushing a human skull beneath its foot. Listening to ‘techno-skeptics' can sure make it feel as though that's the end which inevitably awaits us. If we continue down our current path of imbuing machines with increasing levels of autonomy, learning abilities and artificial intelli... (more)

The Rules of #DigitalTransformation for Start-Ups | @ThingsExpo #BigData #AI #DX #IoT #SmartCities

I have had the opportunity to work for and around a good many start-ups during the course of my career.  Often the start-up founders would simply define a problem, develop a solution and launch a company.  The marketing department would then do their very best to identify the individuals in each target company that experienced the problem and had a budget to fix it. This was always a challenging task, that has become even harder today. Today, start-ups must not only identify a problem that needs solving, but they must compete against "digital transformation" initiatives in both the business and IT organizations that are trying to reduce complexity through the elimination of applications, customized software solutions, IT systems, multiple instances of ERPs and vendors. The goal of many organizations today is to simplify the IT environment, and to make business proce... (more)

[session] Cloud Security | @CloudExpo @SecureChannels #AI #DX #Security

Exceeding the Conventional Modes of Protecting Data: An Innovative Approach to Cloud Security In the fast-paced advances and popularity in cloud technology, one of the most critical factors revolves around concerns for security of your critical data. How to assure both your company and your customers they can confidently trust and utilize your cloud environment is most often top on the list. There is a method to evaluating and providing security that exceeds conventional modes of protecting data both within the cloud as well externally on mobile and other devices. With the public failure of barrier type security, protecting data can now include encryption methods that protect it in storage as well as when exchanging it outside the confines of a secure cloud. In his session at 21st Cloud Expo, Thomas Fryer, CTO of Secure Channels Inc., will explain how and why data ... (more)