The MyWorld of Tomorrow conference and exhibition was held at the Sandton Convention Centre from 22 to 24 October 2015. Kathy Gibson learnt a lot about how the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to change our lives on all fronts.
Creating African solutions for Africa
African solutions for African problems – that’s the overarching motivation for the My World of Tomorrow conference and exhibition.
Isaac Mophatlane, CEO of Business Connexion, says the thinking behind the event – first conceived about two years ago – was to create a movement where African people can come together and discover solutions to our problems.
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Winners of the SA Innovation Awards …
Winners of the inaugural South African Innovation Awards, celebrating locally-developed solutions that address local issues, have been announced.
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Transformation vital for competitiveness
The IT industry is changing fundamentally and we need to change with it.
That’s the word from Paul Maritz, CEO and executive chairman of Pivotal, addressing the My World of Tomorrow (MWOT) conference this morning on the subject of enterprise IT in the new era.
He says Pivotal was founded on the premise that the industry is changing, and we need to find new ways of engaging with people and things in the face of these changes.
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IoT set to change the retail world
There is real money being invested in the Internet of Things (IoT) in the retail world.
It’s estimated that retailers will spend well over $2-billion on IoT-enabled technologies in the next few years, says Jessica Knight, CEO of UCS.
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Artificial intelligence for data analytics
Artificial intelligence (AI) could finally be coming into its own as a means of analysing the vast quantities of data being produced by the Internet of Things (IoT).
Carl Wocke, founder of Merlynn, points out that one of the biggest challenges with the IoT is to build appropriate logic into these systems.
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Clever cities aren’t ‘creepy’ places
Smart cities have the potential to make people’s lives much easier, but there is still a lot of scepticism, suspicion and even fear associated with them.
Independent product designer Ross Atkin points out that smart city projects tend to put citizens last, with very little engagement with actual people.
In fact, there has been such criticism of smart cities that the Guardian newspaper has even declared that they could destroy democracy.
“There is a growing unease about smart cities,” Atkin says.
Read the full story here.
BCX repositions as leading IoT enabler
Business Connexion is re-inventing itself and wants to be the leading enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Matthew Blewett, chief investment officer of Business Connexion, says that this will be the company’s focus for the next five years.
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Time is now to embrace digitalisation
The digital world is here – it is not going anywhere and no industry or organisation is immune from digitisation.
Tony de Sousa, managing executive: solutions business at Telkom, points out that while digitalisation can improve operational efficiency, there is a school of thought that says it is all about the customer, about delighting the customer and increasing loyalty – which will lead to increased business.
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Cyber-threats in a world of change
The world is changing at the speed of light – there are fundamental changes in the way we live, work and play.
“This is the change of an era,” says Ramses Gallego, security strategist and evangelist at Dell Software. “Some call it the perfect storm, some call it the nexus of forces. We should call it business.”
Gandhi said the future depends on what we do today. “This is very powerful,” Gallego says.
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IT’s role in empowering the future business
In the new IT era, systems have to be fundamentally changed, moving from predictable to elastic IT services.
There has been tremendous change in this decade already, says Nigel Page, chief technologist and strategist: EMEA at HP. Terms like cloud have already become almost passe, and blended into the hybrid cloud concept.
The business landscape has also changed dramatically, and there is scarcely a company in the world that is expecting business as usual going forward.
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Making IoT a reality in SA
There are a range of challenges in building an Internet of Things network – but they are surmountable.
The most important part of the equation is figuring out the customer’ value needs, says Prashil Gareeb of FastNet.
Read the full story here.
The dangers inherent in social media
Social media is with us, and it’s pervasive – but so many people are still doing it very badly.
Social media legal expert Emma Sadleir, says the latest generation of phones and connectivity are incredibly powerful, and users need to be aware of the wide impact they can have.
Read the full story here.