As older generations (last of the baby boomers) are expected to be fully out of the workforce in the next 5-8 years, the organization will be left with a void of resources with deep expertise expanding over a career of 25 years.   

Their replacements? A new wave of resources leveraging data and AI technologies. Many of us already in the workforce have learned on the job or been taught by co-workers.  What about the generation in college/university today? Can we continue to expect the current formal education will be enough?  

Kerry Calnan, VP of Innovation & External Affairs at Nicols College in MA, USA, leads by experience, fostering capabilities such as the Center for Intelligent Process Automation (currently going into its 3rd year) and in Fall 2022, will launch a new 4-year degree 'AI Automation.'  

Intending to link real-world experiences at the undergraduate level,  Nicols College is continuing its efforts to remain at the forefront of education and emerging technologies combined with the 21st-century skill needed in our constantly changing global landscape. 

 Want to know more:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-calnan-75693a12/ https://www.nichols.edu/offices/center-for-intelligent-process-automation/

Our guest today is Mara Pometti. She outlines her professional journey from Journalist to AI Strategist and covers topics:  - Predictive maintenance solutions in the energy sector. 

Specifically, failures in high voltage cables routing energy from the wind farm to the mainland - Translating data through technical KPIS using visual data story - Perspectives on how the EMEA is embracing AI technologies - Human-centered AI discipline - Multi-disciplinary team throughout the AI lifecycle  - Lessons learned along the way.  

About Mara:

Mara is IBM’s first-ever AI Strategist. She defines herself as a data-savvy humanist who sits at the intersection of AI, data journalism, and design. Mara’s method uses human needs as a lens to uncover overlooked opportunities hidden in companies’ data and transform that data into stories that illuminate the vision of a new scenario that aligns AI projects with human values and business intents. ​ As a polymath whose experience spans from the humanities to AI, Mara acts as a translator who bridges these worlds through design, strategy, and data storytelling. 

Mara’s work focuses on humanizing AI, that is, responsibly weaving AI into the dynamics that we, as human beings, live in every day.   

Mara’s book: Communicating with data: information between data journalism e data visualization https://amzn.eu/d/9TjDgQO

User experience (UX) design defines a user's experience when interacting with a digital product, application, or website. It is the primary layer between the user and the technology.

Design decisions in UX design are often driven by research, data analysis, and test results rather than aesthetic preferences and opinions.  Software applications focus on UX design to bridge the gap between the results of the application and how the end user interacts with those results. 

There hasn't been a lot of focus on (UX) User-Centric Design Experience with AI-driven results.  

Laura's past 6 years as a UX Designer - and recently focused on AI applications in the past 3 years -has uncovered additional value to the stakeholder by including UX Design as part of the AI Lifecycle.  

Find Laura on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-dohle-559aba121

I love food & I have embraced AI Technologies. Therefore, I was excited to discover Andrew Yip, Head of Future Foods at Monde Nissan Singapore.  In this conversation with Andrew, we take a discovery perspective of breaking down food to its chemical components, understanding taste and texture, where AI technologies are getting deployed today, and where we might see AI Technologies in the future.   Think kitchen in a restaurant or research. With new roles such as Food Technologist, technology and food are fusing more and more.   

More about Andrew Yip - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-yip/

What if using AI technologies could remove the unconscious human bias when evaluating & segmenting unstructured data? What if we are no longer required to store petabytes (1 petabyte = 1 million gigabytes) of historical, industry-specific data to reference and compare?

That is the focus of the discussion with Adriano Garibotto, Co-founder - Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Creactives SpA.

Humans look for patterns in data to cluster like data together, then use queries or a grammar-based machine learning approach that trains models based on existing data sets.  When using deep learning combined with natural language processing, those older approaches are no longer necessary to create a more realistic neural network of connections.

Creactives provides AI-powered solutions to provide real-time procurement insights and analytics, optimize inventories and procurement processes, and to render business data usable by overcoming geographical, linguistic, and ERP/PLM/S2P system barriers.

Discussion today focuses on how AI is slowly started to making its way into the legal system in India, as well as, trends Divya is observing as a practising advocate (lawyer / attorney).  A constant learner, she has recently has focused on AI policy and auditing for AI processes.    Divya also talks about global resources and connections she has used which can assist others in starting or continuing your education journey in AI privacy, policy, etc.  

Divya (दिव्या द्विवेदी) Dwivedi is a practising advocate at the Supreme Court of India. An Engineer turned Lawyer with experience in ensuring the legality of commercial transactions of Corporate world involving fields like AI, IoT, Data Privacy, IPR (Patent Drafting, Patents, Trademark Filing, Copyright Maintenance, IP Portfolio Management), Company Law, Technology Laws, Cyber Laws, Cyber Forensics, Environmental Compliances, Gender Justice, Legal due diligence.

This episode explores from point in time when an executive leader say 'This is our goal for this year' to understanding how to identify & 'right size' the enterprise data to support those strategic goals.  

I 1st heard the term 'right-size' when I worked in waste management. The goal of 'right-sizing' is to ensure you have the right solution to meet the customer's needs at a cost that is acceptable. I feel this term is appropriately used here as well. How much data and at what cost (time, bias) is the right fit to support value to the organization. 

Additional topics discussed with Samta Kapoor, from Accenture include:  - Avoiding data paralysis  - Linking data directly to corporate goals focusing on valuable outcomes - leading with value first  - Recognizing enterprise data may be in mulitple data sources and may have overlapping data across those sources - Governance and specifically identifying an individual who owns the governance is critical to sucess - Data is and should be treated like an asset - Start small with proof of concept for buying with business stakeholders and leadership - Not everyone will understand data. Taking time to fold in a data driven culture - What does it really mean when we say 'value to the organization' - Lessons learned

In this episode, we explore the obstacles & value of deploying AI-infused (in-country) weather solutions with a goal to impact 195 countries worldwide.  Anna Prouse is an internationally recognized foreign correspondent with expertise in Middle Eastern, African, European, and Indonesian culture, politics, and business. 

International Red Cross Delegate and advisor to governments and industry in post-conflict and emerging nations. Knighted with the highest-ranking honor of the Italian Republic: the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Given the title of “Honorary Man” by the most senior Iraqi military elite. 

Author of four books, athlete, and adventurer.  Anna has combined her expertise in collaboration with Atmo who developed weather technology utilizing AI to provide higher confidence in the predictability of weather across the globe.  

Brilliant storyteller, this episode takes you deeper into countries and cultures we may never have an opportunity to experience in our lifetime.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-prouse-4106b239/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/atmo-ai/