Science & Technology

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 09 nov 2014

Big data technologies and applications, like most other emerging technologies and trends, are evolving and companies are trying to adopt and search for the best options to stay ahead of others. Bill Loconzolo of Intuit opted for data lakes that can hold vast stores of data in their native format, while Dean Abbott of Smarter Remarketer advocated cloud. According to Mr. Loconzolo, 'In the past, emerging technologies might have taken years to mature. Now people iterate and drive solutions in a matter of months - or weeks.' Computerworld sought suggestions from IT practitioners and experts and came up with the following 8 important big data and analytics trends - (1) Big data analytics in the cloud (2) Hadoop: The new enterprise data operating system (3) Big data lakes (4) More predictive analytics (5) SQL on Hadoop: Faster, better (6) More, better NoSQL (7) Deep learning (8) In-memory analytics. Chris Curran of PwC suggests, 'You need a way to evaluate, prototype and eventually integrate some of these technologies into the business.' While Mark Beyer, an analyst at Gartner, says 'IT managers and implementers cannot use lack of maturity as an excuse to halt experimentation. IT needs to work with analysts to put a variable-speed throttle on these new high-powered tools.' Read on...

Computerworld: 8 big trends in big data analytics
Author: Robert L. Mitchell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 oct 2014

According to 2014 KPMG Global Technology survey of 768 global technology business leaders, the three disruptive technologies - 3D Printing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Biotech/Healthcare IT - have the potential to shape the next three years. While commenting on prospects of these technologies in Ireland, Anna Scally, partner at KPMG Ireland, said 'The good news is that Ireland has big strengths and further potential in these areas.' Survey respondents consider the following as the top barriers to commercialize technology innovation - security (27%), technology complexity (22%) and customer adoption (21%). In the study, technology business leaders globally believed that retail/intelligent shopping (20%) has the greatest potential to generate revenue as a result of adoption of IoT. Moreover it also cited digital currencies like Bitcoin & Blockchain as emerging technologies that might impact specific sectors or industry in particular regions depending upon their adoption. According to Gary Matuszak, global chair of KPMG's Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice, 'The interplay of these emerging technologies is enabling new business models and fuelling innovation in many industries.' Read on...

Silicon Republic: Three disruptive technologies that will shape the next three years
Author: John Kennedy

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 oct 2014

The evolution of global society and growth of interdependent world has facilitated 'networked' approaches to public value and new models of global problem solving. Moreover digitization of society has transformed its capability to organize for innovation, creation of wealth and public value. In an interview, Don Tapscott, an innovation and technology thought leader, suggests four pillars of the society that rely on each other for success and survival - (1) Critical role of 'governments' in achieving security and prosperity, and achieving harmonization, fairness and justice (2) Most countries in the world have chosen the 'private sector and corporations' as the dominant institution for the creation of wealth (3) The 'civil society' has emerged as a new and critical pillar with not-for-profit sector becoming a massive part of the economy and providing employment to substantial population (4) Internet has empowered 'individual citizens' from every walk of life to have an extraordinary effect on achieving social change. Read on...

DonTapscott.com: The New Interdependence: Four Pillars of Society
Author: Don Tapscott

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 oct 2014

'Digital Natives' (or Generation Z), growing up with technologically intensive environment that includes social, mobile, cloud, multi-media technologies etc will be entering the workforce in the next decade. Unlike the Millennials (or Generation Y), who were raised in 1990's with dial-up networks and monophonic ringtones, Digital Natives are used to super-fast hardware and software readily available on screen. They are more entrepreneurial and probably lack the employer loyalty demonstrated by earlier generations. According to research by Sparks & Honey, people of this generation spend 41% of their free time with computers or mobile devices. So if these expectations are not met by their future employers they might take away their energy, enthusiasm and expertise to someone who does or they might just prefer to create their own start-up. According to Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, self-reliance is another defining difference of the upcoming generation - 'While millennials seek mentors, Generation Z is more about helping themselves.' The Digital Natives (DN) will find the business environment with traditional hierarchical management models as stifling and affecting their creative abilities. With involvement of social media in recruitment process and companies creating 'employer brands' through sharing information about their culture, opportunities and how they treat their employees, the next generation will be more aware of their employers. If companies don't keep their promises, the DNs will not hesitate to switch loyalties. Moreover considering their obsession with social media and sharing opinions on it, they will also make sure that they publicly post negative opinions about a bad employer. As wikia.com study found that 55% of DNs use social networks primarily to share their opinions. The coming of DNs to the workforce will be an opportunity for employers to benefit from their strengths, but at the same time they need to make sure that they provide right combination of engagement strategies and technology tools for better employment experience and utilization of potential. Moreover companies have to invest in user-friendly mobile technologies and collaboration tools not only for the new generation but for all generation of employees to be more productive. Read on...

diginomica: Is your HR strategy ready for the Digital Natives?
Author: Andy Campbell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 oct 2014

Technology is impacting human resources (HR) function of businesses in big way with the HR software space being a US$ 15 billion market. Innovations in HR technology is leading to investments from venture capital and private equity firms - top 50 HR technology deals this year were above US$ 560 million & top 50 learning and educational technology deals were over US$ 800 million. Some of the areas of interest for startups include social & referral recruiting, talent analytics, assessment science, online learning and mid-market core HR systems. Moreover new tools and applications are also being developed to help manage employee communications, engagement, recognition and workplace wellness. All these innovations and investments in HR technology are creating disruptions and shifts in this space and businesses can't ignore them. Ten significant disruptions are - (1) Shift from Systems of Record to Employee Systems of Engagement (2) Mobile is everything: Build mobile Apps not just 'mobile Versions' (3) Analytics-driven, science based solutions. Data analysis is now the solution, not the product (4) The science of leadership, assessment, and psychology evolves with Big Data (5) Sensing, crowdsourcing, and The Internet of Things. Systems become more real-time (6) Radical changes to recruiting as social and referral based recruiting becomes the norm (7) Dramatic changes to performance management and talent mobility. Agile, transparent practices are a new area of focus (8) Learning Management systems change and market expands (9) HRMS and Talent Management merge: ERP vendors catching up (10) Technology savvy vendors will likely outpace their peers. Read on...

Forbes: The Top 10 Disruptions In HR Technology: Ignore Them At Your Peril
Author: Josh Bersin

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 21 oct 2014

Wikipedia recently launched a project 'Wiki Zero' that advocates for free access to health and education materials in developing countries through mobile networks. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, says that in developing economies lack of access to health and medical information results in large number of preventable deaths and cites the case of Ebola in Africa. He mentions that Wikipedia is currently the most viewed health resource online in the world. Wiki Zero has already been adopted by mobile service providers in China and India. Read on...

The Telegraph: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: 'Free Wiki could save thousands of lives'
Author: Oscar Williams-Grut

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 17 oct 2014

It's been 20 years since the blogging pioneer, Dave Winer, began scripting his blog stories via DaveNet and Scripting News. In the continuous evolving field of individual publishing, innovative technologies bring shifts that keep on transforming the way people share their content. Microblogging platforms and mobile-based content sharing being the most recent ones. Text-based blogging is now been changing to sharing of visually enhanced content like pictures, inforgraphics etc. Year 2012 saw the rise of visual content sharing sites like Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram and a study same year concluded that 44% of users engage more with a brand with visual posts. Author, Christian Adams, explains the visual information processing as quicker and better in his ebook, 'InstaBRAND'. There are number of platforms and websites that are pursuing the collaborative storytelling and blogging with visual content. The next wave of blogging thus might be concise, aggregated, dynamic, visual content shared effectively on myriad of mobile devices. Read on...

Huffington Post: Is Collaborative Storytelling the Next Generation of Blogging?
Author: Andre Bourque

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 17 oct 2014

According to Cisco, a networking solutions company, venture capital firms are expected to invest US$ 1.6 billion on 'Internet Of Things' (IoT) technologies this year. While speaking at the IoT World Forum, Cisco's chief globalization officer, Wim Elfrink, said, '13.69 billion things are connected virtually by October 2014 and it is estimated that 50 billion objects to be connected by 2020.' With IoT consumers are looking for intelligence from connected devices, equipment and infrastructure. The startups in IoT continues to grow from just 13 in 2013 to 189 this year. At present nearly 300000 people are involved in jobs related to IoT. As IoT is evolving and billions of devices are getting connected to each other there are issues and challenges related to security and availability of skilled & educated workforce in the area of networking. Read on...

The Times of India: VC firms likely to invest over $1.6 billion in Internet of Things in 2014
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 15 oct 2014

To fully and effectively adopt and integrate latest technologies in a healthcare system requires understanding and cooperation of all the stakeholders. Clinical staff is a critical component of the healthcare ecosystem. Hospitals must involve frontline staff and seek their suggestions and feedback while beginning to implement new IT system. Julia Ball, assistant director of Nursing at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL), explains how their hospital pursued implementation of mobile technology successfully by listening and involving their frontline staff. According to her, their CEO, John Adler, in order to achieve their strategy of becoming 'paper light' obtained feedback from staff that voiced frustration regarding the amount of time spent on paper work and the resulting impact on patient care and suggested use of less paper and more technology support in their work. Nursing staff of selected wards was provided with iPads and iPhones to effectively and efficiently record observations and this data has been instantly shared with all staff responsible for the patient's care. This provides targeted flow of information to specific services and clinicians that can timely respond to a particular patient's needs and requirements. The new process provides more time for nurses to be with patients and provide better care. The staff of these selected pioneering wards thus became the champion for the new system and, advocated and supported the management's strategy for a paperless and technology-enabled environment. Read on...

the guardian: Involving hospital staff is key to implementing new technology
Author: Julia Ball

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 13 oct 2014

As digitization of education - use of laptops, USB devices, tablets, smart mobile devices, multimedia audio-visual equipments, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), social media etc - continues to grow, will there be commodification and depersonalization of education? Professor Chris Hackley of Royal Holloway, explains how digitization is happening and influencing the educational and academic landscape but the central authority of the academic or teacher should not get diluted in the process. Even though large population of students are tech savvy and rarely engage with print media preferring internet-enabled devices to access information but wholesome and all-round education also require personal level engagement and thought sharing through direct interaction between students and academics. Marshall McLuhan pointed out, 'A medium is not merely a means of transmission - it influences the character of the message.' Although MOOCs has been successful in expanding the reach of education to larger audience globally but their high non-completion rates testify to most students' need for direct engagement with the teacher. Professor Hackley concludes, 'There is no turning back the tide of digitisation in higher education, but the integrity of the process demands the presence and authority of the academic. The media will obliterate the message, unless there is room in the digital university for the reassuring voice of the academic author and their skills of argument, inspiration, content curation and creation.' Read on...

The Conversation: Does the age of online education herald the death of academics?
Author: Chris Hackley

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