Five years ago I interviewed Professor Horacio Gonzalez-Velez for the Irish Tech News podcast and of things we talked about was Ireland's First Cloud Competency Centre (CCC) in NCI. A dozen years after the founding of Ireland's First Cloud Competency Centre, the CCC hosted PDP24 https://pdp2024.org. Winning this prestigious conference and its international attendees for Ireland as well as contributing to/leading many pan-European research projects, including another First - for Ireland, and indeed for Europe - a master's programme in Open Data.

I caught up with Professor Horacio González-Vélez the head of the cloud competency centre in NCI, to catch up on what has happened since we last spoke. Dr González-Vélez talks about how the CCC has changed over 12 years, crypto, Ai and more.

More about Professor Horacio Gonzalez-Velez:

Horacio González-Vélez is a Professor of Computer Systems and Founding Head of The Cloud Competency Centre at National College of Ireland. Under his guidance, the Centre has grown exponentially, from some 20 students and a single EU-funded project in 2012 to hundreds of students and multiple EU-funded research projects underpinned by a capable team of professionals by 2023. 

His research has consistently sought to bridge the gap between data-intensive computational problems and their discrete patterns of computation and communication. He has harnessed his diverse background to engage with stakeholders of all backgrounds, skills, and genders, as he actively contributes to institutional committees, European working groups, and research strategy development.