Momenta I Digital Thread

Julie Albright, Ph.D Digital Sociologist at the University of Southern California and a Board Member of Infrastructure Masons. We discuss her new book, Left to Their Own Devices – How Digital Natives are Reshaping the American Dream. The central thesis of the book is that the rise of the Internet and digital technologies is causing people to become untethered – from relationships, work, institutions, even society itself. This phenomenon is manifesting among Millennials most prominently, though the impact is touching later generations as well. We discuss what it means to be untethered, the emerging values of the untethered generation, how these changes are affecting how people work, live and relate to one another. Digital technologies are “recoding our operating systems” as people become increasingly disconnected from nature and traditional ways of learning. We also explore the impact on businesses such as retailers, along with ramifications of increasing AI-driven automation. Lastly she shares some of the positive outcomes of a connected society and provides a call to action.

Babur Ozden is founder and CEO of Maana, a software based Knowledge Platform. Our conversation explored the origins of the company, which focuses on capturing best practices and tacit knowledge of business processes to provide employees with domain-specific software assistance created through extensive analysis of historical data. He discusses the challenges of deriving actionable knowledge from silo-ed data, and the principles behind the creation of the Maana Computational Knowledge Graph that powers the company’s solutions. He also shares why and how the company turned its focused to the energy industry and provided examples of successful use cases of the platform, shared insights around competition, risks and vision for the future.

Sander Klous is Professor of Big Data Ecosystems at the University of Amsterdam and Partner in charge of Big Data and Analytics for KPMG in the Netherlands. Our conversation explored the key issues of trust, governance and ethics in analytics and AI, following on his books We are Big Data and Building Trust in a Smart Society. He is currently working on creating an ethical framework that would enable auditing of analytics and algorithms in a way similar to how audited financial statements represent a trusted presentation of business results. He shares insights into the current thinking around ethics in AI, outlining key risks from analytics and the value of trust. Lastly, he shares examples of how the City of Amsterdam is leading the field in applying ethical frameworks to analytics.

“JT” Jean Turgeon is VP and CTO for Digital Transformation at Avaya, with a career in technology and communications that spans decades Our conversation explored different dimensions of digital transformation, including the evolution of IoT and the impact across multiple industries. JT shared where Avaya is focusing its digital transformation efforts, in particular in the Health Care, Public Safety and the Hospitality industries. One of the key points he makes is that companies should start small and build on incremental successes rather then trying to “boil the ocean”. He also shares his insights on the compelling opportunities around AI, blockchain, VR and other emerging technologies.

#53 How Crate.io Helps Drive Digital Transformation a conversation with Christian Lutz by Momenta

David Bauer has a long career managing risk- as a CTO, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Information Security Officer and COO for Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and other institutions. In our conversation he discusses assessing and managing risk to digital transformation strategies, going beyond the topic of cybersecurity covered in our earlier podcast. He shares the complexities involved with ensuring that digital processes are mapped appropriately, how to evaluate the user experience on apps, highlighting failures and successes. He also outlines the strategic risk assessment framework he has developed, offering insights into different criteria – both quantitative and qualitative. Lastly, he provides useful advice for companies embarking on their digital transformation strategies.

Mike Flannagan’s extensive experience in technology and Connected Industry has placed him at the nexus of the evolution of industrial IoT and digital transformation. Our conversation explored best practices around digital transformation, the role that technology companies can play in helping to drive changes to business processes and the value add of analytics in broad context. He shared perspectives on how best to bridge the culture gaps between technology and core business along with framing priorities and considerations to best position for digital success. The discussion turned to AI – the implications, potential and challenges as these technologies have moved to the forefront of business discussions. Most important, we discussed the risks of historical biases becoming encoded in future algorithms, and the imperative to ensuring that diverse voices and opportunities harness the best talent in the fairest possible manner.

With the growing adoption of solar power generation across homes and businesses there’s growing need for solutions that simplify the evolution of the grid, and improve ROI. PowerLedger is at the forefront of a new generation of Distributed Energy Management Systems (DERMS), with a platform that enables energy to be sourced from multiple modes of generation and monetized in different ways. Our conversation explored the key macro drivers behind the company’s origins. David Martin explains the company’s origins, the role of blockchain in its technology, and the different aspects of its solutions. Of particular note are the company’s live projects, including a microgrid in Bangkok, projects in Japan and California. While the transition to clean energy generation is revolutionary in many respects, PowerLedger is seeking to ease the challenges of transition and make change as evolutionary as possible.

Joe Weiss works as the Managing Partner of Applied Control Solutions and Managing Director of the ISA99 standards organization. He has a deep background in control systems security, and has been active in the cyber security community around control systems for decades. Control systems are everywhere in every type of power generation, substation, pipeline, manufacturing, transportation, medical, pharmaceuticals – and security is often not understood. Our conversation covered a range of topics including how security is only a small part of control system challenges, the three “legs” of security (physical, IT security and control systems), the cultural challenges to raising appropriate security awareness, and areas where security has been overlooked. He provides a look into the magnitude of the problem, while pointing to encouraging areas of progress.

Bill Ruh is CEO of Digital Business at LendLease Group, a global developer and construction company for high rise and other real estate developments. Previously, he was the Chief Digital Officer for all of GE and CEO of GE Digital. Our conversation explored the nature of digital transformation, the considerations for creating goals and aligning the organization for success. One of the key insights is that transformation for industrial firms draws from best practices of technology companies, and the core principle is that technology companies’ missions are tied to asset optimization and better outcomes. He also shared how large companies need to think of transformation in two speeds – shorter term and longer term, where Speed 1 is the quarter to quarter focus and Speed 2 is the long term “moon shots”. He compares and contrasts the innovation mindset and approaches between startups and established companies, and shares best practices for larger companies to bridge the cultural gaps between their legacy and digital businesses. He also shares his views of the futyre of the construction and real estate industries enabled by the transformative impact of new technologies, which he is spearheading in his new role at LendLease.