You may have noticed that you’re hearing more about cybersecurity in the news than you have in the past. That’s because cyberattacks are growing in scope and frequency, and organizations large and small are beginning to understand exactly what is at risk when you have a vulnerable system.  Christian Espinosa has been aware of these risks for years, and he has been sounding the alarm to anyone who would listen. Christian has a background as a cybersecurity consultant, founded his own cybersecurity company, Alpine Security, and wrote a best-selling book about cybersecurity, and he shared his perspective on the subject with us on this episode of Future of Tech. Christian says that one of the major problems with cybersecurity today is that, in terms of defense, IT functions in the same way it has for a decade. So as cybercriminals get more sophisticated, the backend of many systems has remained stagnant, leaving organizations vulnerable to all manner of bad actors. But Christian also offers solutions, including bringing a more hands-on approach to your organization, changing the way we all communicate about cybersecurity and the risks of leaving our technology vulnerable, and how to structure your departments and prioritize hiring to ensure that cybersecurity stands alone. Enjoy this episode.   Main Takeaways: Time To Think Differently: From a defense perspective, the way IT functions has not changed significantly over the last 10 years, which means the fundamental challenges still apply. Attackers are still entering systems through the same vulnerable spots as they always have in the past and their attacks are evolving. It’s time to start getting great at the basic things, like vulnerability management, phishing training, and configuring systems in a more secure way. Hands-On: The companies that have had the most success with cybersecurity have made cybersecurity a hands-on issue that everyone in the organization is involved with and responsible for. Show everyone in the organization exactly what is at stake and how easy it is to be hacked, and then invest in giving them the tools and training they need to prevent attacks. Separation of Church and State: Cybersecurity should be a separate department and fall under the purview of a CISO rather than a CIO or CTO. The CISO should also report directly to the CEO. When the department is completely separate from IT, security will be enabled in a way that takes only cyber into account, and the head of department will not have other stakeholders or business problems to worry about. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.

A childhood inspiration doesn’t always lead to an adult dream-come-true. But for James Gwertzman, an early fascination about the technology behind the art of games and movies was what led him on the path to a career in tech. And where he wound up in his career would probably make a younger James do a double-take. Today, James is the General Manager for Gaming Cloud at Microsoft, where he builds the best possible cloud platform for video game developers that allows them to keep creating the worlds that had him transfixed as a kid. On this episode of Future of Tech, James discusses how he got to this dream job, and he explains how technology has made it possible for more kids just like him to get into game creation easier than ever before. Plus, James takes us behind the scenes of the technology that has made gaming the massive industry it is today, including the creation of cloud-based solutions that allow creators to focus more on the creative aspects of game building and worry less about the backend infrastructure. Enjoy this episode!  Main Takeaways: More Than A Game: The world of gaming has come a long way from the days of Pong. Today, gaming is more about community building and content creation. Gamers can connect with other gamers via streaming platforms and they can build their own games or build aspects within games more than ever before. Free To Play. Hard To Build: Free-to-play games have become all the rage, and they have democratized the gaming industry. But creating those games is more difficult than it seems. As the gaming industry has evolved, the expectations of games have been set higher, which means that all games — free or otherwise — are expected to have an entire ecosystem and story behind them. This requires a sophisticated backend system and well-designed infrastructure. New cloud-based technologies are making this easier, though. A 5G-Filled Future: Thanks to 5G, mobile gaming will likely become as intricate and well-connected as PC gaming. Multiplayer functionality will improve and innovative, connected experiences will begin to enter the mainstream. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.    

Very few things have accelerated the need for digital transformation within business as much as the adoption of the public cloud. With so much happening in the public cloud or in hybrid clouds, and considering the innovation and applications that are being built specifically for cloud, it would be foolish for a business to ignore that movement or not optimize its processes to work in a cloud environment. But digital transformation is not easy. On this episode of Future of Tech, Lakshmi Sharma, the Director Product Management, Network Experience, Performance, Reliability & Solutions, Google Cloud, breaks down exactly what digital transformation looks like today, and how Google Cloud is being put to use in the process. Lakshmi explains the definition of digitization today and she discusses where A.I. and the edge can be built into the process. Plus, she predicts the future of building business infrastructure and explains why we need to start thinking about IT infrastructure the same way we think about running water and electricity. Enjoy this episode!  Main Takeaways: Defining Digitization: When a company goes through a digital transformation, it means they are digitizing the organization. But what does that actually mean? Today’s definition of digitization is making it possible to access your services and business from anywhere. So whether you are an employee, a customer or some other stakeholder, your business must be set up in a way that everything is connected so that you can operate at scale from anywhere.  Sharing Is Caring: Google deliberately creates cohorts of organizations and CIOs, CTOs, CISOs and other C-suite members to share knowledge. Regardless of whether Google built a specific platform or application, that technology can always be shared and improved upon, which happens much easier when you have multiple smart folks from all different ends of the spectrum joining together. Updated Infrastructure: What is needed right now is more people to help create easily implemented and scalable infrastructure. Businesses need infrastructure like people need running water and electricity, but we are not yet at a point where IT infrastructure can be turned on and off like a faucet. That is the future. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.    

Tendayi Viki likes to say that innovation is just about management, but it’s a different kind of management than business leaders are probably used to, which is why many of them need help with the process. That’s why they call Tendayi, an Associate Partner at Strategyzer and the author of the book Pirates In The Navy, The Corporate Startup and The Lean Product Lifecycle and his specialty is helping large companies innovate for the future.  On this episode of Future of Tech, Tendayi breaks down what the future of innovation looks like and he explains why innovation starts at the top with a leader who is willing to do things a little differently. Tendayi says that leaders who want to bring innovation into their organization need to be comfortable not knowing which bets will be the winners and instead find a way to create an environment where winning ideas can emerge on their own and prove themselves as worthy of investment. Tendayi also gives a warning about intrapreneurship and explains why the No. 1 thing you have to look for in an intrapreneur is not how creative or brilliant they are, but how well they can form relationships. And,  he reveals the four key questions that innovation needs to be asking if they want to have any chance of success. Enjoy this episode! Main Takeaways: It Starts At The Top: More often than not, the biggest problem with driving innovation comes from a lack of leadership. When leaders lean on the same tools, behaviors and metrics they use to run their business in order to drive innovation, they will fail because innovation takes a different kind of approach to get right. Leaders have to set forth an innovation strategy that fosters creativity and encourages employees to think and work differently. Small Bets: When you are looking to foster innovation, you have to make a lot of small bets not knowing which ones will pay off. Give a lot of people a lot of runway to experiment and prove their ideas, and then when one or two emerge as real contenders with measurable impact and ROI, invest big in those and cut your losses on the others. Then start the process again. The Core Four: Innovation teams need to focus on four key areas: desirability, feasibility, viability, and adaptability. They need to constantly ask, does anyone want this? Do we have the capability of making this? Can we make this in a profitable way? Can this idea scale? --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.

Data is like gold in today’s world, and for James Phillips, the President of Business Applications at Microsoft, data is the one true north he will follow until the end. At Microsoft, James leads a global team of thousands of developers who are using data to build all of Microsoft’s business operations and then operate the infrastructure underneath them. And the applications that the Microsoft team has built have helped some of the largest companies in the world put the pedal to the metal when it comes to digital transformation. On this episode of Future of Tech, James details how the Microsoft Dynamics 365 family of products was built to operate together, and what kind of agility and options the Power Platform gives app developers to turn their business applications into key components of the company.  James also defines what a modern application is to a business today, and he explains why data is the foundation upon which all business decisions and applications should be built. Enjoy!  Main Takeaways: The Modern Application: People ask what is a modern application? The answer is something driven by data that a company uses to automate a process or workflow. Sometimes these applications are built internally, and sometimes they are an out-of-the-box solution, but either way, a modern application is built with data at the forefront, and with the ability to take in and scale according to new data. It’s Physics: Just like matter, data accumulates and the more you have the more you know. But the just like when matter accumulates, it creates more gravitational pull on other matter. Data does the same thing, and the more data you have, the more it compounds. So while you are learning more from everything you gather, you are also creating a problem of needing to store and access all of the data you accumulate, which is why developing an agile and effective platform is one of the most important things IT leaders are focused on. Takes One To Know One: The best technology leaders often wind up being technologists themselves. Understanding what’s under the hood is critical to leading a team of people who are tasked with turning technology and ideas into products and services. From there, you can identify the other technologists who are qualified to lead teams of their own and scale infinitely from there. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.

In today’s professional world, longevity is rare. Switching from one company to another, or even one industry or skillset to a new one is commonplace. So hearing that Joe Atkinson has been with PwC for nearly 30 years should give you pause. He’s a unicorn in his own right, and through almost three decades with one company, he has seen how digital disruption happens, what innovation means, and how a company can survive if it leans into the ways the world and technology changes around it. Joe is now the Vice Chair, Chief Products and Technology Officer at PwC and on this episode of Future of Tech, he explains that innovation needs to be fostered and encouraged, and that it is a company’s job to incentivize employees to grow and advance their skills in order to lift up the entire organization. But how do you do that? And how do you measure your success and the ROI of digitally enabling employees?  Joe answers those questions and more, including how automation will play a role in future digital transformations, and why he believes that A.I. will have the greatest impact on the future of work. Enjoy this episode! Main Takeaways: Defining Digitization: Going through a digital transformation means different things to different companies, but ultimately for most organizations when you digitize a process, you change the way work gets done. Automation, data analyzation and tech enablement of processes all empower employees to work differently and unlock creativity because they are spending less time on tedious tasks and more time on work with greater impact.  It’s Not Battle Bots: Despite what many people believe, bots are not going to steal jobs from humans. Bots have already been implemented in thousands of organizations to supplement the work done by employees, and the bots will continue to be trained and optimized in order to elevate the performance and output of employees. Broaden Your Scope: Rather than trying to target your digital transformation investment in one particular area or department, open the transformation to all branches and employees in the organization. Just as data is a valuable resource, digitally-equipped and trained employees are also a valuable and important resource that your company can build from. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.

If you want to know about Kubernetes, you should probably talk to the guy who built, pitched and then implemented K8 at Google. So that’s who we called for this episode of Future of Tech.  Joe Beda is one of the fathers of Kubernetes and on this episode he takes us behind the scenes of developing K8, including why they decided to open-source the technology to level the playing field of app deployment. Today, Joe is a principal engineer at VMware, and he’s still making waves in tech, particularly in the world of open source. Joe explains that working on open source projects fosters a sense of community and leads to more win-win scenarios that include integrated solutions that work for every vendor. Plus, Joe explains the future of edge computing and how service mesh and edge will work together. And, he talks about the future of Kubernetes and why the ultimate goal is to have Kubernetes become boring. Enjoy this episode! Main Takeaways: Problem Solver: One of the reasons Kubernetes is so popular is because it solves many problems at the same time. Using K8, you can efficiently use an entire set of machines dynamically across the whole company, and you can improve workflow with a set of APIs that app developers can access virtually anywhere. Getting to Win-Win: The key for a successful open source project is to find win-win scenarios where multiple developers across vendors can agree on a vision and integrate solutions from every corner of the project to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts and that every vendor can benefit from. Open source fosters a sense of community in this way and allows for all different types of developers to contribute even if they aren’t necessarily directly involved with the problem at hand.  Getting Edgy: Moving forward, there will be a greater need to have more computing power in more locations in order to keep operations moving fast. Edge is one solution to this, but managing and scaling edge compute to make it more accessible to enterprises is one of the main challenges for IT leaders today. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.

Not long ago, telephone companies had a monopoly on all forms of voice communication. But, just as it has done to most aspects of daily life, the internet changed everything. Thanks to the internet, people could connect over IP from all corners of the world. And now that the technology has improved, the connections have become stronger and the systems have been built to support high-speed connection, the VoIP industry is becoming more important than ever for businesses. Craig Walker is the Founder and CEO at Dialpad, a company he started after working for Google, where he led strategy, execution, launch and product direction for Google Voice.  On this episode of Future of Tech, Craig explains how VoIP is being used in every industry, and he discusses why the unified system of communication that Dialpad offers will lead to a more automated workforce. Plus, he details how artificial intelligence is now being implemented into all forms of communication, and why that will be a game-changer for how companies operate and train employees moving forward. Enjoy this episode.  Main Takeaways: Leveling the Playing Field: Voice over IP has given regular people and technologists a foot in the door in the voice communication industry. Previously, telephone companies had massive monopolies and control over how people around the world communicated, but thanks to the internet and the structures and connections built by the VoIP innovators, everyone has an equal opportunity to connect with voice. Bringing A.I. Into The Conversation: With new integrations, companies are able to use artificial intelligence to automatically transcribe VoIP conversations and then, with either a human or machine learning, a salesperson or customer service rep can get real-time help in answering customer questions or responding to needs based on the conversation. Integrating the Future: Unifying systems of communication will help to automate the workforce in a new way. When everything is truly connected rather than siloed, you can implement A.I. throughout your communication tools that will be able to gather accurate data, which can then be used to solve problems, train employees, and create better systems and workflows that are less dependant on humans tracking and recording things like phone calls and video conferences in manual logs. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.

On the last episode of Future of Tech, we introduced you to Dr. David Passig, a renowned futurist, who explained that future studies is less about predicting the future, and more about understanding the present in order to avoid negative outcomes and enhance positive ones. Today, in Part 2 of our discussion with Dr. Passig, we continue the conversation about how technology will continue to shape the future of our world. Dr. Passig dives into the negative impacts of all technology, and gives an insight into the future of social media, plus, he details the stages of evolution and artificial intelligence, and how close we are to truly humanizing our artifacts in a meaningful way, including the sharing of social knowledge between technology. And, Dr. Passig explains why he is optimistic about the future, despite the inherent dangers of technology, and why he believes that the more we look ahead, the more we can prepare and unify humanity. Enjoy this episode!    Main Takeaways: Pluses and Minuses: There has never been a technology that only brought positive impacts. Every technology also had negative aspects to it, which needed to be sussed out and refined over time. This is an ongoing process that happens constantly throughout centuries. Incoming IoT: The IoT will be much more important than people currently believe. Through the IoT, our artifacts will be able to begin sharing knowledge that we as humans are not necessarily aware. Optimistic Mindset: Although there are dangers to every technology and the future is never certain, we can prepare ourselves and use the knowledge we have gained in order to unify the human species. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.

Those who do future studies know that there are an infinite number of possible futures. With infinity as a baseline, how does one prepare for what’s to come or predict what will come next? On this two-part episode of Future of Tech, Dr. David Passig, a renowned futurist, explains that future studies is less about predicting the future, and more about understanding the present in order to avoid negative outcomes and enhance positive ones. Here in part one, Dr. Passig explains the basics of hunting for patterns that might help to predict the future, and he explains exactly why and how humans are built to use technology as a way to break free of the prisons of time and space that currently confine us all. Plus, he gives a prediction about how we might start thinking about gravity a little bit differently not too long from now. Enjoy and tune in for part two next week! Main Takeaways: Back To The Future: Future studies isn’t about predicting the future, it’s about studying the present and the past in order to find ways to bring about more positive outcomes.  Pattern Matching: By identifying recurring patterns, you can begin to predict what will occur in the future or, at least make educated guesses as to where certain systems or events will lead. Population Problems: One of the driving forces of humanity is productivity, but a human’s productive years are very limited. As more people go from having many children to having fewer children, that will deplete the amount of total productive capacity of the population overall. As such, there is a drive to create more technology to fill in the productivity gaps. --- Future of Tech is brought to you by Amdocs Tech. Amdocs Tech is Amdocs’s R&D and technology center, paving the way to a better-connected future by creating open, innovative, best-in-class products and continuously evolving the way we work, learn and live. To learn more about Amdocs Tech, visit the Amdocs Technology page on LinkedIn.