Future of Tech

Rick Rioboli says that when you are trying to transform a platform or product space, sometimes you have to forget everything you know and start from nothing to build something truly innovative. And as someone who did in fact transform an entire platform and product category, Rick Rioboli would know that from experience. Rick is the Senior Vice President & CIO at Comcast and during his time with the company he was instrumental in leading the team that built the X1 platform from the ground up, which has won numerous awards, including an Emmy Award for Technology and Engineering.

 On Part 1 of this two-part episode of Future of Tech with Rick, he describes the journey to building that platform, what it meant to adapt to the new work environments when COVID-19 hit, and the importance of the customer experience. According to Rick, the full digitization of companies and customer experiences is on the horizon, but success or failure in that digital transformation will come down to your understanding of your data. And he explains why tech companies need to lead, and not follow, and be open to change. Learn about all of that and more — including what it means to be a good CIO — on this episode and tune into Part 2 next week for more about the X1 platform. Enjoy!

Main Takeaways:

• Adapt and Overcome: In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, just about every company had to adapt to a new type of working environment. With most, if not all staff shifting toward a work-from-home situation, it was important to make sure that employees had the resources they needed,  but also that they were taking care to not overwork themselves now that the boundary between work and home were blurred.
• Building the Best Experience: When building a good customer experience, you have to start by visualizing what the ideal customer experience looks like and then work your way backward from there. And as a tech leader, you have to figure out a way to ensure that your technology can enable that ideal experience. 
• There’s An App for That: As more customers were forced to stay at home during the pandemic, new technology emerged to fill in the gaps left by the removal of in-person interactions.

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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.

Technology is an enabler of all kinds of activity. But how does a person actually change their behavior to use a piece of tech or buy a product or incorporate some sort of automated process? There are mental hurdles involved as well as technical ones, and Zoe Clelland has made it her mission to understand and facilitate those technological behavior changes.

Zoe has both a Master’s and a PhD in Human Factors and Experimental Technology, and today she serves as the Vice President, Product & Experience at Nintex, a company that helps businesses around the world automate some of their most sophisticated processes. On this episode of Future of Tech, Zoe dives into the world of mental models and why they are critical to consider when building, introducing, and helping customers adopt new technology like low-code, no-code, RPA, or anything else. Technology like low- and no-code are all about bringing solutions to the table, and when you know to design the product and the adoption process to highlight that idea, Zoe says you are more likely to succeed in your pursuits. She explains all of that, and more, including the rise of RPA, A.I. and M.L., and she highlights the areas CIOs should focus on when they are embarking on a digital transformation process. Enjoy this episode!

Main Takeaways:

• Mind Over Matter: You could make the most beautiful, efficient, and expertly-designed website or piece of tech, but if you don’t know what is driving your customer to the product in the first place, you will never have success. You need to understand the mental models involved in bringing a consumer to the table and design around that.
• Solving For X: Having a solution to a problem is one of the most important selling points for anything. If you are offering a low-code no-code tool kit, or an automation process, or various forms of A.I. or M.L., selling the merits of the tools is less effective than selling the solutions they offer overall.
• CIO Playbook: When embarking on a new job as a CIO or into a digital transformation, don’t try to do too much, too fast. Pick some of the low-hanging fruit to work on first in order to build trust with the departments you work with, and then assure them that their voices are being heard.

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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.

We have been told that we are currently in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution. Technology is reshaping how we live and work, but we are only in the first wave of feeling the impact technology has had. In the next few years, many believe that technology will see even greater innovations, which will have a huge amount of influence on just about everything in our lives. Toby Eduardo Redshaw is one of the folks who believe that is true, and as the SVP of Enterprise Innovation and 5G Solutions at Verizon, he’s had a front-row seat to some of the exciting technological innovations that will soon be widespread. 

Toby believes that we are in the middle of a critical time of change, experimentation, innovation and advancement. On this two-part episode of Future of Tech, he takes us through some of the areas that he sees as ripe to make the biggest impact on our lives and work moving forward. In Part 2 of this discussion, Toby explains how big tech companies need to come together to form partnerships, what it means to innovate with an impact, and the need for even more trust and transparency in the future. Enjoy!

Main Takeaways:

• Just the Beginning: We are still at the beginning of the timeline of the fourth industrial revolution. In the next few years, expect to see even greater technological shifts than what we have experienced in the last decade-plus.
• Howdy, Partner: There is more overlap in tech than ever before. As such, the giants of the industry will likely find more opportunities than ever to partner with their counterparts, but it will take a bit of adjustment.
• Do You Trust Me?: Today’s consumers demand honesty and transparency from the companies they engage with. Customers need to trust that a company is doing exactly what it says and that it is operating with the best intentions. Those that break that trust will be doomed to fail.

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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.

As we move further into the fourth industrial revolution, the technology that is coming around the corner is sure to continue to reshape the way we live and work. Toby Eduardo Redshaw is one of the folks who believe that is true, and as the SVP of Enterprise Innovation and 5G Solutions at Verizon, he’s had a front-row seat to some of the exciting technological innovations that will soon be widespread. 

Toby believes that we are in the middle of a critical time of change, experimentation, innovation and advancement. On this two-part episode of Future of Tech, he takes us through some of the areas that he sees as ripe to make the biggest impact on our lives and work moving forward. From IoT to NextGen Cloud Computing to A.I. and 5G, there are big shifts happening in the tech industry, and Toby shares that we will be seeing quite a lot of exciting digital transformations in the years to come. What is ahead for smart A.I. at the edge? How will AR and VR begin to help people with on-the-spot, real-time field training and assistance? Toby answers all of that and more, here on Part  1. Enjoy!

Main Takeaways:

• Leave a Mark: Innovating is all about having an impact. You can experiment and test as much as you want, but at the end of the day, a company is only successful if it brings something to the table that will actually help, change, or make better a part of a person’s life.
• Danger Ahead: As with any industrial revolution, there will be companies that are unable or unwilling to adapt. Those will eventually fail, while the ones that are able to innovate in practical ways will leap ahead.
• Investing in 5G: The appetite for 5G is widespread. Not only do businesses want the technology, but banks and investment firms are looking to put money into companies that are taking the move to 5G seriously. If you cannot show that you are investing in 5G, you cannot prove to investors that you are preparing for the future.

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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.

Welcome back for another season of Future of Tech!

Join host Avishai Sharlin, Division President of Amdocs Technology, as he chats with some of the most innovative minds working in tech today about the current state of tech in the world and where they predict we’re headed in the future.

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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.

It wasn’t long ago that very few companies were comfortable with the idea of working in open source. But the world has changed, and as Chris Wright says, open-source is the new normal. Chris is the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Red Hat, and on this episode of the Future of Tech, he explains how Red Hat has helped open-source go mainstream. He advises everyone in the tech community to become part of the open-source community because it’s there that you will uncover solutions to problems that you weren’t expecting or couldn’t find without the power of a collective of curious minds working toward a singular goal. Plus he explains why he thinks CIOs need to ask themselves a couple of very important questions surrounding operational efficiency and developer velocity.

3 Takeaways:

• The acquisitions happening around open-source prove that open-source has gone mainstream

• Open source will be used to deal with the explosion of data that has happened in recent years and which will become exponentially worse as more of the things we do become digital and online

• We are on the precipice of true revolution when it comes to A.I because technology is in a better place now than in recent years

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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.

Matthew Hodgson is the technical co-founder of Matrix.org and CEO/CTO of New Vector and he thinks the way we communicate, from a CEO, government, and personal level is broken. But he also has a way to fix it. He believes that the future of communication is through the decentralized web and a flexible, encrypted, open-source network which is exactly what Matrix provides. Whether it’s the entire German government, hundreds of universities around the world or others, there is a shift happening in how people are interacting, and Matrix is at the center of it all. On this episode, Matthew explains how and why all these customers are finding value in Matrix with host Avishai Sharlin and guest co-host, Moshe Friedman, the Head of Amdocs Ventures.

3 Takeaways:

• The internet does not currently work as it needs to as a tool for communication. People rely too much on siloed applications rather than one single source of communication

• The Matrix platform is enticing for customers like the German government because it offers the flexibility, encryption and open-source access that other communication tools do not

• There is an opportunity to return control of communication to the hands of the people and end-users

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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.

“For more than 25 years, Tony Saldanha helped lead the digital transformation at Proctor and Gamble, a company that is ranked 35th on the Fortune 500 and generates more than $65 billion every year. With so much at stake, every move Tony made had massive consequences, and each new technology he introduced had the potential to create massive ripple effects among the nearly 100,000 employees. Today he is the President of Transformant, where he is sharing his secrets and experience to help other go through successful digital transformation. On this episode of Future of Tech, Tony explains the need for constant disruption, where the media sector is on the disruption timeline, and why he believes we are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution and how we’ll keep evolving using the technology at our disposal.”

3 Takeaways:

• Large corporations often face more competition from start-ups than they do from other big companies 

• We are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, and companies that want to survive the revolution must take part in a digital transformation and a rewiring of their entire business models

• When you keep disrupting yourself, you stay ahead of the competition, and some key disruptions to keep an eye on are A.I., blockchain, and simple automation

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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.

Whether your company is working in the cloud, using on-prem systems or managing many apps or hybrid systems, there is no doubt that there is a lot going on under the hood in your tech stack. Who you partner with to help you get a handle on all of that makes a huge difference. When you partner with Google Cloud, they make it easy for you to worry less about managing all those systems and focus more on the things that really matter to your business. On this episode of Future of Tech, Jennifer Lin, the VP of Product Management for Google Cloud, and Chen [Hen] Goldberg, the Senior Director of Engineering for Google Cloud, joined us to discuss how they make that possible. Using technology like Kubernetes, Anthos, and leaning into working with open-source, both women say that Google has made it easy for their partners to find agility, flexibility, security, and innovation without worrying about what’s going on behind the scenes and how everything is connected. They also share their best advice for CEOs and CIOs who are looking to design the next generation of their cloud and why you need to have a mindset of continuous learning in order to be successful. Enjoy this episode.  

3 Takeaways:

• Creating a personalized user experience that solves a customer’s problem is one of the main focuses for Google

• Making Istio an industry-standard is a major investment for Google at the moment

• Open-source is the best way to build bridges across multiple platforms and technologies so that everyone in the industry can move faster

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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 company’s architecture has always been of tantamount importance to the company’s success. So when it became apparent that using multiple architectures led to suboptimal performance, operators everywhere were looking for a single-architecture solution. That’s when Rajesh Gadiyar and the team at Intel came into the picture to start designing exactly that solution. On this episode of Future of Tech, Rajesh, who serves as the VP of the Data Platforms Group and the CTO of the Network Platforms Group for Intel, described the entire process of building a new sort of architecture. He also explains why the disaggregation of hardware and software is one of the most important outcomes of NFV because of the flexibility it offered, and why CIOs everywhere should be focused on embracing that principle of disaggregation.

3 Takeaways:

• The biggest accomplishment of NFV is the disaggregation of hardware and software, which offers more choices and an open ecosystem

• The real power of 5G is building applications and services at the edge

• CIOs need to transform their infrastructure and embrace the principles of a cloud-native and disaggregated system

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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.