Leveraging local know-how through public-private partnerships

Coming from Finland, where Nokia has been at the very core of a successful national innovation policy, I was surprised by the limited collaboration between the State of California and the tech giants in the region. I used to live a mile from Nokia’s HQ. When others dreamed about becoming ballerinas, I wanted to be… Read more Leveraging local know-how through public-private partnerships

Opening our data – is it worth the risk?

Big data and its analysis is a hot topic, but it is not just reserved for the world’s leading tech companies. Big data is creeping into business all over the world, into the way cities run, and even into the way governments go about their business. The potential uses for analysis of large data sets… Read more Opening our data – is it worth the risk?

California's open data endeavor

Chris Cruz, deputy director and deputy chief information officer for the state of California, talked about the current technology-wise projects the state has, such as the consolidation of the state’s many data centers into only a few, the implementation of cloud technology, cybersecurity, and the open data and transparency initiatives. In this post, I will… Read more California's open data endeavor

Transparency and Innovation in California:

Dr. Daniel Barreto introduced the CIO’s objective in a company by saying that a CIO should “power a competitive business full of opportunities and challenges.” Ambiguity and paradoxical situations are part of the job description as the CIO must balance between Cybersecurity issues, regulation compliances, and transparency. Two separate issues that are hard to associate… Read more Transparency and Innovation in California:

New Product breakthroughs with recent advances in deep learning and future business opportunities

Even though artificial intelligence was introduced in the early fifties, It has only been made attainable very recently thanks to the recent advances in deep learning, artificial neural networks, increased performance of transistors, latest advancements in GPUs, TPUs, and CPUs. Before going over the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in Google… Read more New Product breakthroughs with recent advances in deep learning and future business opportunities

Cyber security challenges in developing countries

This post focuses on the cyber security challenges that the developing countries are experiencing. Since the beginning of this century we have been facing a new type of conflict worldwide which is the control of cyberspace. The main dilemma being faced in cyberspace is lack of universal understanding of definitions, norms, values, rules, regulations and… Read more Cyber security challenges in developing countries

CA Innovation Lab – Why using open innovation and how to enable it?

One of the platforms mentioned by Chris Cruz was the California State Innovation Lab which encourages California State employees to ideate, create, test and collaborate to achieve great innovations (http://www.innovate.ca.gov).  It can be seen as an open innovation approach, although it is limited to employees only. But what are the characteristics of open innovation, why… Read more CA Innovation Lab – Why using open innovation and how to enable it?

Google Keynote Address

Initially, when I watched the Google IO 2017 Keynote I was blown away by its attractive presentation of upcoming products and mesmerized by the innovativeness, diversification of different product’s purpose and lastly how dominant Google was. Let me first tell you about the key announcements of these products and explain the commonalities of these different… Read more Google Keynote Address

Cloud Computing: security and new ideas to make us feel safer.

Cloud Computing has grown for the past few years and now it is part of our lives. In simplest terms, cloud computing is saving data, programs and so on in a place that is not your computer hard drive, but you still have easy access to it. There are several pros about Cloud computing. However,… Read more Cloud Computing: security and new ideas to make us feel safer.

The Past, Present and Future of Cloud Computing

Dr Daniel Barreto, in the first lecture, introduced the class to the various up and coming buzz words that are being used in information technology and shaping our future. Out of the various trends in information technology like machine learning, big data, artificial intelligence, etc, I found the most interesting to be cloud computing. To… Read more The Past, Present and Future of Cloud Computing