Technology Magazine October 2022

ADEIA

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Global giants and innovative startups will all find the perfect platform with direct access to an engaged and active audience. You can’t afford to miss this opportunity.

CATHERINE GRAY

SCOTT BIRCH

ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ

ARNETA

GONZALEZ

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GLEN WHITE

Just the two of us: Powering a sustainable future with tech

In a time of evolving social responsibility and leaps forward in tech, consumers are more demanding than ever when it comes to sustainability – but how can technology and sustainability combine to preserve the future?

The world is changing. People all over the world are holding companies accountable for their ESG goals and boycotting businesses that are not delivering on their sustainability targets.

But, what has this got to do with technology? Many industries are turning to tech and are embedding it into ESG strategies across the stack –from client to infrastructure.

Recently, Oracle shared that 91% of business leaders are facing major challenges in making progress on sustainability and ESG initiatives, including finding the right data to track progress.

With this in mind, we use our latest issue of Technology Magazine to highlight how technology and sustainability need to align if businesses are going to deliver on their sustainable initiatives.

The role of the CTO has never been more important, so now is the time for these c-suite executives to step up and shift the tide, before it is too late.

“Many industries are turning to tech and are embedding it into ESG strategies across the stack – from client to infrastructure”

Watch our 2021 Showreel

Join us at FinTech LIVE London

presentations, Q&A sessions to 1-2-1 networking, the 2-day hybrid show is an essential deep dive into issues impacting the future of each industry today.

Global giants and innovative startups will all find the perfect platform with direct access to an engaged and active audience. You can’t afford to miss this opportunity.

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BIG PICTURE

Orbiting a lunar future NASA, Outer space

As NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the Moon under Artemis, the agency has identified 13 candidates for landing regions near the lunar South Pole.

To select the regions, technologists used data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiters.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is a robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon and is essential as NASA plans future human and robotic missions to the Moon.

Each region identified contains multiple potential landing sites for Artemis III, which will be the first of the Artemis missions to bring crew to the lunar surface, including the first woman to set foot on the Moon.

THE BRIEF

“What we are recognising is that defence is changing the way that it's managing

business”

a seismic shift happening just below the ground. It's not visible, but soon, the

will be there, so we're going to see rapid release of

Technology Officer,

hope is that engineers and technologists, female and male, play a more prominent role in shaping the world's future”

Kanjo

What is the most popular and

Deloitte China and Alibaba Cloud create auto industry centre

The new centre, created by Deloitte

and Alibaba Cloud, will focus on providing customers in the automobile

Old-world offices are moving to the metaverse

It’s not just well-worn web brands

make the metaverse. As more companies

virtual,

the

this “the nail

traditional

Ongoing advancements of autonomous vehicles

With continuous advancements and developments in technology, autonomous cars are continuing to evolve and make great strides towards reality.

Baidu has recently become the first robotaxi operator in China to obtain permits for selling rides with no human driver or staff member inside the vehicles. The tech giant’s autonomous ride-hailing service, Apollo Go, is now authorised to collect fares for robotaxi rides in Chongqing and Wuhan, two of China's largest cities.

"Fully driverless cars providing rides on open roads to paying customers means we have finally come to the moment that the industry has been longing for," said Wei Dong, Vice President and Chief Safety Operation Officer of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Group.

 FUJITSU

Fujitsu and the Riken Research Institute are set to offer quantum computing capabilities to companies operating in Japan. From April 2023, Fujitsu will become the country's first domestic company to commercialise quantum computing.

 GOOGLE CLOUD

Google Cloud claims to have repelled the biggest HTTPS DDoS attack ever recorded, after a Cloud Armor customer was targeted by attacks peaking at 46 million requests per second (RPS).

 TWITTER

Twitter has confirmed that the phone numbers and email addresses of 5.4 million accounts have been stolen. In a statement on its website, Twitter said that, in January 2022, it received a report of a vulnerability in Twitter's systems.

 PLEX

Video-on-demand service Plex has notified its customers of a data breach in which email addresses, encrypted passwords, and usernames were stolen by a third party.

I N N E R S L O S E R

TIMELINE THE HISTORY OF THE METAVERSE

The birth of the World Wide Web

The development of the World Wide Web started in 1989 with Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues at CERN, an international scientific organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland.

1989 2002 1992

The term ‘Metaverse’ is created

By the end of 1990, the first web page was served on the open internet, and, in 1991, people outside of CERN were invited to join this new web community.

In 1992, Neal Stephenson wrote a science fiction novel called Snow Crash, which talked about a virtual realitybased Metaverse, where people would spend most of their time in the virtual world.

Digital twins

The concept and model of the digital twin was publicly introduced in 2002 by Michael Grieves.

Based on the idea that a digital informational construct about a physical system could be created as an entity on its own, this digital information would be a ‘twin’ of the information that was embedded within the physical system.

The metaverse has recently become a popular topic, but it’s not exactly a new concept – the idea has been around for decades, born shortly after the internet was created

HISTORY THE METAVERSE

Roblox is released

A successful player in the Metaverse, Roblox first entered the world of online gaming back in 2006, and it’s now stronger than ever, with millions of players worldwide. This platform allows users to create and play games developed by other users, and is popular among younger generations.

Global companies expand into the Metaverse

As the digital revolution continues, more people and brands are diving into the metaverse, enabling them to connect and network in a virtual space. Gartner recently named the metaverse one of the top five emerging trends and technologies for 2022. The global metaverse market stood at an estimated US$38.85bn in 2021 and is expected to grow to US$47.48bn in 2022.

Facebook makes moves with virtual reality

In 2014, Facebook acquired virtual reality leader Oculus for a total of approximately US$2bn. Facebook explained how it planned to extend Oculus’ existing advantage in gaming to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas.

Zarina Pasalic

Overcoming hardship to become an inspirational role model

We talk to Zarina Pasalic of Cisco about her pivotal role in growing the company and being a visible example of women’s varied opportunities in tech

Influential and results-oriented leader Zarina Pasalic heads up Cisco’s Digital Experience (DX) team for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Together, Pasalic and her team ensure that customers and partners receive end-to-end connected, guided, fully automated, and hyper-personalised customer experiences. Every interaction has to be optimised to drive the desired customer outcomes across the Cisco business, products and customer lifecycle.

“I love the pace of change in tech. We’re building the future while making today better. What’s not to like? Soon, everything that can be digitised will be digitised. With the emergence of smarter devices, quantum computing, AI, and datafication to name just a few, how we work, live and play is being transformed. Technology powers everything,” says Pasalic.

“The talented men and women working in technology today are as crucial as the stonecutters and carpenters envisioning cathedrals in the Middle Ages. Extraordinary skills are needed to build and secure the next wave of innovation and growth,” she continues.

With this passion, Pasalic plays a pivotal role in this ambitious growth initiative and has been responsible for re-tooling processes to allow for mutually beneficial customer and partner relationships. The key has been ensuring user-friendly subscription sign ups and automated renewals, taking the friction out of these traditionally admin-heavy activities.

In her role, Pasalic has ensured that Cisco has market-leading expertise in customer success, instigating close teamwork between sales, the IT channel and marketing to boost subscription-based revenues.

“I’m incredibly proud to work here, and that’s partly because the whole ethos of the company is innovative – right from the products we create to the way we do our work, through to how Cisco supports its people to lead better lives, both at work and at home. At Cisco, each person brings their unique talents to work as a team and make a difference,” she explains.

Adding to this, Pasalic notes: “Yes, our technology changes the way the world works, lives, plays and learns, but our edge comes from our people. In terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Cisco has a strong culture of giving back to the Community. The company genuinely

has instilled a high degree of resilience and informed my empathetic leadership style”

cares for society and helps those less fortunate than us.”

During her time there, Pasalic believes she has been able to make some great strides professionally: “My biggest achievement has been building a world-class team with the necessary market-leading expertise to truly transform Cisco.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, where we get to be in the middle of Cisco’s transformation from traditional hardware to software organisation. It’s been gratifying to instigate close teamwork across the entire company and create the experience that our customers no longer expect, but demand.”

Empowering women to take up tech

As a female in a male-dominated industry, Pasalic believes her experiences as a woman have turned her into an empathetic leader.

“I’ve seen first-hand how supportive, caring managers can lead brilliant teams, and are more likely to retain talent, inspiring higher levels of productivity and engagement,” she notes.

This skill developed from her own personal experiences arriving in the UK as a refugee from Bosnia: “My family and I built a new future in the UK from nothing. This is after having lived through the disruption and trauma of war. I believe this experience has instilled a high degree of resilience and informed my empathetic leadership style.”

“I have always been a good listener, able to understand when people are facing tough times in their personal

“So, clearly, we’re not attracting enough women into the sector”

or working lives. Certainly, today my colleagues will tell you, I have a very open, ‘tell me anything’ approach to people management,” she continues.

Pasalic is also determined to be an activist for women in the field, particularly as she points out that only one in five UK tech employees is a woman.

“So, clearly, we’re not attracting enough women into the sector. However, as more and more senior women rise up the ranks, this will demonstrate to girls and younger women that tech is a career open to females,” she says.

Concluding, she outlines how she looks to empower women in tech: “I’m a senior member of the team, so I’ve been looking to make myself more visible. I say ‘yes’ to most opportunities, even if it’s outside my comfort zone. This is important. ‘See her, be her’, as they say.”

“I both mentor and sponsor people earlier in their careers – roles that are about providing guidance and advice.”

VISHAL KAPOOR

APPLICATIONS, DATA & AI PRACTICE LEADER, KYNDRYL

KYNDRYL’S APPLICATIONS, DATA & AI PRACTICE LEADER, VISHAL KAPOOR SHARES HOW THE COMPANY HELPS OTHERS AS THEY OVERCOME CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH SCALING AI SOLUTIONS.

Q. TELL ME ABOUT KYNDRYL, YOUR ROLE AND YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES.

» Kyndryl is the world’s largest information technology infrastructure services provider that designs, runs and manages complex, missioncritical information systems for global businesses and organisations, including 75 percent of the Fortune 100. More than 90,000 Kyndryl employees support and provide services to more than 4,000 customers in over 60 countries around the world.

I am the Applications, Data & AI Practice Leader at Kyndryl. In this role, I lead the team of applications, data, and AI experts ensuring they are developing market-leading solutions and supporting customer teams with the technology and solutions customers need most.

Q. WHAT CHALLENGES HAVE YOU IDENTIFIED THAT ORGANISATIONS NEED TO OVERCOME IN TRANSFORMING AI FROM SIMPLY ASPIRATIONAL, TO TRULY SCALABLE AND INTELLIGENT SOLUTIONS?

» Organisations today have sporadic and disproportionate data – including quality, size, privacy

“ Extracting the value of data and driving actionable insights is challenging and complex”

issues. Clients are really looking for observability around data and what It means in the data workflow – and how that workflow supports the last mile through the supply chain to deliver sustainable analytics with clear business realisation outcomes from design thinking.

Extracting the value of data and driving actionable insights is challenging and complex. Organisations must deal with

legacy systems that have data silos and excruciating data extraction challenges. There are undefined workflows that are in unorganised data swamps across applications and infrastructure that are time consuming and with limited visibility. Sporadic data assets impair the decision process for support and automation. Poor supply chain across many persons causes ‘garbage in garbage out’ throughput and is the cause of many failed AI programs.

It doesn’t take a village to achieve a successful program, but it does require attention to the right mix of technology and business resources. Because of these challenges, organisations face headwinds across their skills and resources and their ability to provide strategic direction and intent to the program. There is a vacuum of tribal knowledge

“ We have also developed a unique solution that addresses common pitfalls such as missing observability, quality, reliability etc. when it comes to managing data sprawls across multiple data platforms”

around the current environment, with no thought leadership around modernising the estate which impacts the inability to seek investments and business cases. All of this leads to a lethargic workforce and initiatives within an organisation.

Q. HOW DOES KYNDRYL HELP WITH THIS?

» Kyndryl has a simple three step framework to help our clients:

1. Establish a data and AI foundation that brings in good quality of data through the hundreds and thousands of pipelines within the enterprise. It’s not just clean data, but also relevant data that would provide the right business outcome and impact. Experimentation around AI is encouraged through agile work packets that drive incremental value, with a focus on scale once a rhythm is established to leverage the data fabric framework. We then make certain that the organisation’s infrastructure assets are ready and able to support the scale.

2. Deliver business impact by leveraging design thinking to accentuate actionable outcomes across core enterprise functions such as HR/Finance and business processes such as customer experience. We create business value drivers with clear goals and KPI’s that can truly capture outcomes, using a financial operation modeling for measuring costs and consumption.

3. Scale AI through a factory model which can drive large enterprise deployment across the organisation, creating a culture of democratisation and monetisation of AI.

Q. CAN YOU IMPLEMENT AI WITHOUT A DATA STRATEGY? DO YOU THINK ONE CAN EXIST WITHOUT THE OTHER IN BUSINESS?

» CXOs have the vision to be an intelligent enterprise more than ever through digital transformation leveraging data. The pandemic has only fueled this for companies to be more data driven. But the biggest problem is availability of the right data that can drive contextualisation for driving business decisions.

Data is the new business natural resource. It is also an embarrassment of riches: too much data. Defining what “data” means to an organisation and to the consumers that it serves is not always obvious. It needs to be

discovered. It is all about extracting data value through the quality of the data, and this requires a collaborative approach in both the functional and business aspects of the organisation.

Q. WHAT'S NEXT FOR KYNDRYL?

» Kyndryl is now working with several clients worldwide on driving forward their data driven enterprise strategy, data modernisation, data integration and data governance initiatives whilst looking at opportunities to scale and realise value from their AI projects. We have a robust partner eco-system which cuts across cloud service providers, niche data management technology providers in the data modernisation, governance space.

This year, Kyndryl embarked on a partnership with Five9 to collaborate on cloud-based contact centre solutions that deliver personalised experiences to customers and employees, while helping companies navigate the rapidly changing needs and requirements of the digital business landscape.

We have also developed a unique solution that addresses common pitfalls such as missing observability, quality, reliability etc. when it comes to managing data sprawls across multiple data platforms. The solution is called Augmented Data and Analytics Console and offers a unified service plane and control plane to manage data in the underlying data platforms. We continue to engage with clients in advisory, implementation and managed services capacity with the guiding principle of meeting the CDOs/ CISOs/ CMOs where they are in their current data management and AI journey and collaborate towards propelling their journey onwards and upwards.

Innovation for entertainment of the future

AD FEATURE WRITTEN BY: ALEX TUCK PRODUCED BY: GREG StQUINTIN

Chances are, the technologies that you have experienced video content on and through have been shaped by Adeia. From digital cable and DVRs to Electronic Programme Guides and conversational user interfaces, the technologists, scientists and engineers in Adeia’s highly-experienced research and development lab in San Jose, California have an iconic legacy that includes over 8000 patents across the world of entertainment and beyond.

As video consumption grows, and consumers explore and experience video in new ways, the need for content storage and high-performance computing (HPC) present fresh opportunities for Adeia to do more of what they do best: develop patentable innovations that expand the industries they serve.

A new beginning

Following a US$3bn merger in 2020, TiVo Corp.’s parent company, Xperi Holding Corp., decided this year to announce a standalone intellectual property (IP) business.

“Following separation, Adeia will be the leading independent IP licensing business, driven by its pioneering media and semiconductor innovations,” said Paul Davis, who has moved from his Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary role at Xperi – a Silicon Valley-based entertainment tech company – to take over as CEO.

Serhad Doken, Chief Technology Officer, gives us an insight into the IP business Adeia, which invents, develops and licenses innovations that advance our lives

Innovation for the future of entertainment

While not a household name, Adeia is nevertheless present in millions of homes. An innovator in recommendation personalisation, search discovery, metadata user interfaces, user experience, and semiconductor domains going back to the early nineties, it has also grown with a string of high-profile acquisitions such as Veveo (a Natural Language Processing pioneer) and Pelican Imaging.

The logic behind the separation of the holding company and the product business is to unlock value for shareholders and investors. Adeia’s role is now firmly placed in long-term research and monetisation of that research, with a high focus on intellectual property.

The media-focused business will continue its work with pay-TV providers and OTT (over the top) video service providers, including notable names such as; Netflix, Disney, and HBO, as well as consumer electronics OEMs and social media companies.

The company ensures it has an army of employees equipped with PhDs, looking not just at what is coming in the next few months, but in the long term. “We work on tough technical problems, and we’re fully supportive of inventions and inventors,” said Serhad Doken, Chief Technology Officer at Xperi, who will now lead technology at Adeia.

SERHAD DOKEN CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, ADEIA

For nearly 30 years, Doken has worked with CEOs, CTOs, CFOs, corporate strategy,

“ Adeia will be there to tackle the toughest R&D challenges in media”

business units, professional services, sales, legal groups, and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) teams during every interaction, day in and day out.

“I was brought in to build the media R&D team last year, as we are getting ready to separate as a public company during Q3 of 2022. I have a long tenure working on innovation-specific roles at various companies. This was an exciting opportunity for me to work at the top of the innovation funnel yet again, with the potential to invent the future as the sole focus of the role,” Doken explains.

To deliver on long-term strategic goals, Doken has built a team of experienced inventors and innovators who work on the next generation of user interfaces and technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, volumetric video (3D), cloud gaming, connected advertising, light-field displays and compression, next-generation streaming, 3D-content engines, and many other technologies that branch from connected, home-related services such as spatial audio, content security and moderation.

Moving outside the home, the team works on virtual collaboration and the evolution of video conferencing from where it stands today to the next generation of network convergence.

SERHAD DOKEN

TITLE: CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

INDUSTRY: ENTERTAINMENT

LOCATION: NEW YORK, USA

Serhad Doken leads the technology roadmap, research strategy and advanced R&D projects. He was previously Executive Director of Innovation & Product Realisation at Verizon, where he drove new 5G and Mobile Edge Computing powered services, and before that, VP, Innovation Partners at InterDigital, focused on technology strategy and external R&D projects. He has also worked on emerging mobile technology incubation at Qualcomm and held positions at Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and PSI AG.

Mr. Doken is an inventor on 30 issued patents over 90 worldwide applications. He has a Computer Engineering degree from Bosphorus University and completed the M&A Executive Education Program at The Wharton School and the New Ventures Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School.

SERHAD DOKEN CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, ADEIA

“ This was an exciting opportunity for me to work at the top of the innovation funnel yet again, with the potential to invent the future”

Much of what Adeia does is underpinned by AI (artificial intelligence) and related to media, such as natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision.

Doken adds: “For any company who's active in these fields – whether it’s for products they have today or they’re thinking of launching new products and services in new markets - Adeia will be there to tackle

the toughest R&D challenges the media can throw at us.”

Smart, immersive and personal content delivery

It's a widely accepted fact that consumers gravitate to video services that are personalised. To achieve such personalisation, according to Doken, vast amounts of multi-modal data needs to be processed in real time and automated metadata needs to be created. Both would help enable faster searches, as a basic example, within a very vast library.

“If I wanted to search for movies – for example, videos that were shot in London during the last 10 years that have Daniel Craig in it, that both my wife and I may like – that's not an easy task. If I were to ask the same question of my smart speaker, that’s an even more difficult query to interpret since it’s such a long, cascaded question. Our innovations, in practice, provide the best answer for the user in a very short amount of time,” said Doken.

When dealing with content, privacy and security are also concerns that the whole industry is looking at. The shift from a linear TV world into a connected TV world will have significant ramifications for advertising.

“It was easier in linear TV because your cable company or the TV service provider had a lot of data about you, but, in a connected TV world, you're interfacing with many applications, and they may not necessarily be aware of each other. That's why you see a lot of consortiums in the connected TV advertising world, each trying to come up with standardised solutions so it’s easier to share standardised data –particularly in a post-cookie world.”

Doken believes first-party data, rather than third-party data, will gather importance. Contextual recommendations in terms of

Better ideas. Better entertainment.

what you're doing now and what you have been doing will collect historical data that's aggregated in your profile, meaning more of what you want to see plus more of what is highly relevant to you.

“That's where I see a convergence between connected home services. So, for instance, today through WiFi sensing, I can figure out if you're in front of your TV or you just stepped away to do a quick errand – and there's no equipment necessary for that. In your existing setup, your WiFi router is capable of doing that.

“User privacy and security are being cared for, while the industry uses first-party data and contextual data to make recommendations better and improve the accuracy of targeted advertising,” said Doken.

Augmented reality and virtual reality will merge Traditionally, Adeia has been a user interface

(UI) and user experience (UX) company. Its goals over the last decade increasingly relied on touch and conversational user interfaces, but there's a new vision-based user interface: where augmented reality (AR) will eventually merge with virtual reality (VR), which most in the industry call extended reality (XR).

“This new paradigm will fundamentally impact how content is captured, processed, transmitted and, eventually, how it’s rendered, displayed and enjoyed by users,” said Doken.

Forecasters believe that XR will impact media communication and the advertising industry in a significant way, as well as computation and communication, right down to the chip level. As masters in semiconductors, Adeia are well set for what will come next.

“I already see the impact in sports, music and gaming verticals. They have put out small features or showcases to assess how

“

There's a seismic shift happening just below the ground. It's not visible, but soon, the infrastructure will be there, so we're going to see rapid release of products and services”

SERHAD DOKEN

this new user interface paradigm is going to impact their industry, and this will lead to countless new products and services.”

In the future, Doken suggests that consumers will gain “almost superhuman power” when it comes to contextual content.

According to the CTO, AR is already in iOS and Android, so the underlying infrastructure is being built: “There's a seismic shift happening just below the ground. It's not visible, but soon, the infrastructure will be there, so we're going to see rapid release of products and services.”

Our conversation harkens back to the year 2006, when we were still pressing buttons on phones, but smartphones would soon fundamentally change how people interacted with content, how applications were distributed and how advertising was delivered.

“The physical and virtual will blend; pretty much any physical space can be an advertising medium. We are very close to that. It has been a long journey. It has been difficult to work on the technical problems, but every new paradigm like this creates a much bigger industry,” said Doken.

Future content experience

Adeia has significant experience in user profile creation and management of those profiles, including parental controls, UI customisation in personalised guides that are dependent on behavioural context, social connections, recommendations (whether it's popularity- or location-based), and employing search methods such as knowledge graphs, fingerprinting, automated content recognition, autocomplete automation, universal search, deep-linking context-based search and various other NLP-based techniques, leveraging vast amounts of supplemental data.

Doken conjures a future vision of pervasive connections with people around the world, creating, sharing and consuming content that the user particularly enjoys.

“We have just started this journey with the current watch party features, and we now have live streaming with integrated video chat. You're seeing massive multiplayer online (MMO) gaming experiences where people can play games across an open world with someone they have never met. And the success of Twitch is showing us that people

A history of pioneering innovation

are not only interested in playing games, but also in watching other people playing games.

I see this trend accelerating with more shortform videos, because people have very short attention spans.”

Doken also cites the emergence of more user-generated content. As creator communities become increasingly skilled, their talents and content will soon hold up to mainstream media.

“These creators need to be discovered, rather than getting lost in the long tail. We’ll see integration of more interactive features such as ecommerce, second screen applications integrated with AR and more bidding ranging features for sports content. This will become ubiquitous.”

SERHAD DOKEN CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, ADEIA

“

Through WiFi sensing, I can figure out if you're in front of your TV or you just stepped away to do a quick errand”

SUSTAINABILITY AND THE CIO: HOW TECH CAN SAVE THE WORLD

As the pressure mounts on businesses while they make operations more sustainable, we explore the role of the CIO in developing climate-conscious initiatives

WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY

People’s priorities are changing. Companies are being held more accountable for their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives by customers, employees, shareholders, governments, and even regulators. This external pressure is hitting companies from all industries across all sectors, and rising consumer demand for sustainability is catalysing change in corporate attitudes. And considering a survey from Deloitte found that 98% of consumers believe that brands

have a responsibility to make the world better – paired with research from Oracle stating that 78% of people are frustrated with the lack of progress by businesses' sustainable initiatives – now is the time for businesses to make decisive action when it comes to sustainability.

Happily, by focusing on sustainability, businesses will not only improve their image in the eyes of the consumer, but will also create new opportunities for growth.

A recent McKinsey report found that reaching net-zero by 2050 could lead to a 60% increase in capital spending on physical assets, compared with current levels.

Data drawbacks and sustainability

With the benefits of sustainability in businesses mounting up, many now question why such a large proportion of companies are not delivering on promises made through their sustainable initiatives.

“THE LACK OF DATA COMPLETENESS AND RELIABILITY, THE HIGH COST OF DATA ACQUISITION, AND THE INABILITY TO MEASURE EMISSIONS FREQUENTLY ARE MAJOR CHALLENGES THAT ARE HOLDING BACK PROGRESS ON EMISSIONS MEASUREMENT AND MONITORING”

ZHIWEI JIANG CEO, INSIGHTS AND DATA AT CAPGEMINI

What is Splunk?

“The lack of data completeness and reliability, the high cost of data acquisition, and the inability to measure emissions frequently are major challenges that are holding back progress on emissions measurement and monitoring. When these challenges can be met with the right technology, which combines internal and external data, the path to net zero becomes a reality,” explains Zhiwei Jiang, CEO of Insights and Data at Capgemini.

In this digital age, information is key if leaders want to become more proactive in their response to the climate emergency and, as such, the availability of data is also causing challenges for organisations.

This is particularly difficult to navigate as many businesses use a number of different applications to support processes within the company. “This complexity leads to breaks and inefficiencies in processes that cannot be detected, let alone fixed, with traditional methods. At the same time, these

weak points mean unnecessary consumption of resources, thus increased costs and avoidable CO2 emissions,” shares Janina Nakladal, Global Director of Sustainability at Celonis.

Nakladal does add, though, that there is a willingness there from the C-Suite to become more sustainable. Research from IBM and Celonis found that more than half of Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) would be willing to sacrifice up to 5% of profit to become more sustainable.

“This shows that whilst the will is there, businesses are being held back by other challenges,” says the Global Director of Sustainability.

To overcome these challenges, most of which are reliant on technology, it is necessary to include CIOs in the discussion around sustainability strategies and goals. A study by Accenture found all respondents in agreement: technology is critical for achieving sustainability goals and so, with this, it makes sense that the CIO is firmly involved as a way to fully integrate their technology and sustainability strategies.

Bridging the gap and putting CIOs at the forefront of sustainability As the disparity between the expanding use of data to create commercial value and the comparatively inefficient use of data to solve social and environmental challenges remains, the onus is being placed on CIOs and CTOs to bridge the gap.

“When addressing sustainable transformation, your agenda should focus on using data to understand what the current situation is and what operations can and

Business leaders agree that more progress needs to be made—but nearly all face significant challenges in meeting their ESG goals.

According to Oracle, 91% of business leaders are facing major challenges in making progress on sustainability and ESG initiatives, including finding the right data to track progress and existing timeconsuming manual processes to report on ESG metrics. On top of the operational challenges, 96% of business leaders admit that human bias and emotion often distract from the end goal.

can’t be changed. If you limit yourself to a top-down target of ‘reducing carbon by 10%’, even if you hit that target at the end of the year, have you measured and understood how that was achieved?” notes Mark Woods, Chief Technical Advisor, EMEA at Splunk.

To help measure success, Woods advises that companies need to move beyond the compliance-based ‘nudges’ of turning the lights off or zero plastic and instead develop deeper data literacy skills in the workforce. When the whole team, not just the tech team, can understand and analyse data in its context, they can then be empowered to make changes for the better.

“This data, and the context needed to understand it, has often already been created by expert operational teams to address the increasing imperative to provide efficient, effective and secure products and services,” adds Woods.

To allow teams to get to a point where they can enhance and challenge practices that are not fully sustainable, data needs to

JANINA NAKLADAL GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY, CELONIS

Research from IBM and Celonis

The study, The resilient digital supply chain: How intelligent workflows balance efficiency and sustainability, conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) in cooperation with Celonis and Oxford Economics, surveyed almost 500 CSCOs across 10 industries, including banking, consumer products, manufacturing and automotive. The study findings indicate that organisations are searching for ways to modernise their supply chains by embracing data and hybrid cloud strategies, as well as prioritising sustainability.

be available at the right time, but, as Woods explains: “Data is only as meaningful as the positive change it can bring, and CIOs and

CTOs must ensure digital sustainability becomes part of the entire business lifecycle.”

Echoing this, Jiang says: “From the CIO’s perspective, they are absolutely the right person to look at their organisation’s data operations and strategies, enabling their business to not only collect the right data, but to action that data in a way that supports their sustainability targets. This is the role that will enable them to become a datapowered organisation, and for the right cause.”

Ultimately, this all impacts the bottom line in an incredibly positive way. Many of the world’s leading companies actually measure the impact of inefficiencies within their supply chain processes to minimise resource waste.

To help, data-generating technology can find and realise opportunities to significantly optimise fuel consumption, yielding material, financial and environmental benefits, for example.

Concluding, Nakladal says: “Carbon commitments and sustainability goals are no longer seen as afterthoughts. Rather, they are fundamental aspects of a company’s overarching business strategy. As processes determine how businesses run, they enable operational – and even systemic – change. Once processes are analysed and improved with intelligence and data execution, it becomes possible to prioritise sustainability in every operational decision.”

“ONCE PROCESSES ARE ANALYSED AND IMPROVED WITH INTELLIGENCE AND DATA EXECUTION, IT BECOMES POSSIBLE TO PRIORITISE SUSTAINABILITY IN EVERY OPERATIONAL DECISION”

NHS TRIALS AI TAGGING TECH FROM NTU TO IMPROVE WELLBEING

AD FEATURE WRITTEN BY: SCOTT BIRCH PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

How Highbury Hospital in Nottingham is trialling AI tagging technology developed by the Smart Sensing Lab at Nottingham Trent University

Making the transition from academic theory to realworld application that has a positive impact on people’s lives is the stuff that scientific dreams are made of. It’s a dream that has become a reality for Eiman Kanjo, Professor of Pervasive Computing and Head of the Smart Sensing Lab www.SmartSensingLab. com at Nottingham Trent University’s School of Science and Technology.

“That's the best thing that you could do as an academic,” she says proudly. “Normally we write or present our work in an academic papers, which is good, but to see it being used by real people and to see the real impact, that makes our job worthwhile.”

Prof Kanjo is a true technology pioneer –she coined the phrase ‘mobile sensing’ and wrote some of the earliest papers on the subject. Prof Kanjo was also responsible for the first noise monitoring system (NoiseSpy) where a phone microphone is used to record environmental noise.

Prof Kanjo is also among the Top 50 Women In Engineering winners 2022.

Now her work at Smart Sensing Lab leans towards Deep Learning, Data Science and AI, especially in a mental health and wellbeing context.

Today, Prof Kanjo is proudly showcasing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) platform developed at Smart Sensing Lab called “Tag With Me”, www.TagWithMe.com.

PROF KANJO NAMED IN TOP 50 WOMEN IN ENGINEERING

Prof Kanjo has been selected in the Top 50 Women in Engineering by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES).

Kanjo, Prof of Pervasive Sensing and Head of the Smart Sensing Lab in NTU’s School of Science and Technology, researches topics including mobile sensing, edge computing, data science and technology for wellbeing.

She says: “My hope is that engineers and technologists, female and male, play a more prominent role in shaping the world's future,” says Kanjo. “We design and develop systems that respond to local communities’ needs and we work hand

in hand with end users’ organisations to understand what we can do.”

When it comes to encouraging more women and girls to take up a career in STEM, Kanjo is something of a role model.

“I always loved technology, and computer science, engineering, and I love working with hardware,” she says. “I think the work that we do is very important to show young girls that women can lead these kinds of developments, especially in engineering and technology. So being a role model is very important. And when they see that other women are doing it, they might think that they can do it, too.”

PROFESSOR EIMAN KANJO PROFESSOR OF PERVASIVE COMPUTING & HEAD OF SMARTSENSINGLAB.COM, NTU

Smart Sensing Lab builds systems and digital tools for social good, such as wearables and smart devices, working with end user organisations such as hospitals, local authorities, and charities to help them to solve real world problems.

An early version had already been field tested in Nottingham but we are here to officially launch version 2.0 at Highbury Mental Health Hospital in the city.

The lab’s Tag With Me platform was used in as part of the world-first 5G Connected Forest project (the famous Sherwood Forest (of Robin Hood fame)) that brought that story and habitat to life. The first deployment was at Rufford Abbey Country Park to encourage people to be more active, which is when the conversation started with the hospital to encourage both service users and staff to walk the mile-long (Highbury Mile) route around the grounds.

“We built a platform and on top of this you could build different layers, different applications,” says Prof Kanjo. “So we started with the park to keep people physically active, and then another one for the hospital to improve patient well being by keeping them active. We could also adopt it for schools and education, to allow children

PROF EIMAN KANJO

TITLE: PROFESSOR OF PERVASIVE COMPUTING & HEAD OF SMARTSENSINGLAB.COM

INDUSTRY: HIGHER EDUCATION

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM

BIO

Prof Eiman Kanjo is a Professor of Pervasive Sensing at the Computer Science department, and the Smart Sensing lab lead. The Smart Sensing team has, under her leadership, won the 2021 Vice-Chancellor’s Outstanding Researcher Team Award. Eiman has been selected among the Top 50 Women in Engineering by the Women in Engineering Society. She is the NTU-Turing Network Development Award Lead funded by Alan Turing Institute. Eiman conducts research in Mobile Sensing, Digital Health, and wellbeing. Eiman has developed a new IoT-AI Technological platform to improve wellbeing and increase physical activities “www.TagWithME.com, which is currently hosted by Rufford Country Park and Highbury Mental Health Hospital. She has been PI or Co-I on grants worth over £15mn, funders including DCMS (5G Connected Forest, £10m project in collaboration with Nottingham County Council and many industrial organisations), InnovateUK, SBRI, DSTL, ERDF, MoD, Lottery Fund. She works closely with charities, local authorities, Police & industry. Previously, Prof. Kanjo worked for more than three years as a Research Fellow at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. Prof. Kanjo carried out research work at the MRL (Mixed Reality Lab), Computer Science Department,

“My hope is that engineers and technologists, female and male, play a more prominent role in shaping the world's future”

DID YOU KNOW...

ABOUT SMART SENSING LAB

Smart Sensing Lab investigates different technologies in the field of Pervasive Computing and Data Science, bringing about new ideas and solutions to interesting problems. They also work within industry, providing advisory and development services to support their business activities. Visit smartsensinglab.com

to learn while they are moving around and to make their learning experience more engaging and interactive. We also work with police services, looking at how can we use the same platform for crime prevention.”

There are many potential uses for the Tag With Me platform, and a real-world pilot at the Highbury Hospital could provide data to back up the anecdotal evidence – that gamification is promoting exercise and wellbeing.

There is a mile-long walk around the grounds of the hospital that service users and staff are encouraged to access. By adding in location-specific interactions that can be accessed via an app, people are reporting walking more, and being stimulated by the experience. It’s like a digital treasure hunt that provides a different experience each time.

We explore the route guided by Prof Kanjo’s researchers Dr. Kieran Woodward and Research Assistant Will Parker who both played significant roles in the technology’s

development and both presented the work at the recent TECH LIVE LONDON event.

Using the app downloaded to an Android phone (iPhone app coming soon) we were encouraged to follow the route with pop up notifications,with location data telling us when we were getting close to the next digital marker, and able to use our phone

to capture landmarks for rewards. The gamification of the walk certainly added an extra dimension, to the extent that it was easy to forget this was exercise.

And that is the whole point of the “Tag 4 Active Lives” solution being trialled at Highbury Hospital Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust – to get people moving.

Jenny Bailey is an occupational therapist and lead for the Live team at Highbury Hospital Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust focused on enhancing therapeutic activity on wards, for patients and improving patient experience. Bailey has worked alongside the team from NTU to develop Tag 4 Active Lives at the hospital.

“Staff and patients being able to access more outdoor space, and be able to do more physical activity, move more, is incredibly positive for physical health and mental wellbeing,” says Bailey.

PROFESSOR EIMAN KANJO PROFESSOR OF PERVASIVE COMPUTING & HEAD OF SMARTSENSINGLAB.COM, NTU

“Normally, we write or present our work in an academic paper, which is good, but to see it being used by real people and to see the real impact, that makes our job worthwhile”

JENNY BAILEY OCCUPATIONAL

NHS trials AI tagging tech from NTU to improve wellbeing

“We saw the Tag With Me platform, and we know the work that has been done in Rufford Abbey Country Park, and we wanted to try that on a hospital site, and really use it with our service users and our staff to make the walk more exciting, to make it more interactive, more engaging.”

Bailey admits that “it's not the most exciting walk” being around a working hospital, but that adding fun facts, a quiz element and searching for tags hidden around the walk all encourage and motivates users to keep moving, or go a little further.

“We've got service users involved, because there's object recognition as part of the walk,”she says. “So we've got papier mache models of birds, dinosaurs, hot air balloons created by our service users and staff. They chose the designs and helped produce them so we feel, and they feel, like they are invested in the walk.”

The Smart Sensing Lab team employs AI for object recognition via the phone’s camera,

“We saw the Tag With Me platform and we wanted to try that on a hospital site to make the walk more exciting, to make it more interactive, more engaging”

and these objects can be changed on a regular basis, for instance to reflect events like Christmas or halloween. There is also a database of facts and questions relating to the hospital and Nottingham as a city that are randomised, so no two walks are the same.

But the million-dollar question is, does this actually work? Are service users seeing a real benefit from the technology?

“I think that's something we would really like to know,” says Bailey. “We have been piloting it and we hope to really roll that out and try and understand that. Anecdotally, I feel like we have had good feedback, people spending longer outside, more time in the fresh air and walking for a bit longer.

The technology has certainly sparked conversations with other health-related services in the city, providing helpful reminders or ‘nudges’ when it comes to healthier lifestyles. Bailey believes there are multiple potential uses from mindfulness to relaxation tips, and something that people can use independently – a tool that can be picked up and dropped as needed.

Professor Kanjo agrees that there are many potential uses for the platform, and that feedback so far has been positive and that users have felt more active.

“We work closely with Nottingham City Council as part of their Smart Nottingham initiative,” says Kanjo. “We are deploying our environmental monitoring kits in the city centre, which will pick up air quality data to be transferred to our dashboard. Another project we are working on is in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police, and other police services, where we try to develop technologies for crime prevention around cities – can we use Internet of Things technology, wireless tags, and AI in a way that can help people learn more about crimes in their environment or avoid dangerous places or risky places?”

JENNY BAILEY

TITLE: OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST

INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM

Live Team Clinical Team Leader and Mental Health

Lead for Green Social Prescribing as Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

I am passionate about Mental Health and Social Prescribing.

My career has spanned various mental health and voluntary sector roles. I have primarily been based within inpatient Adult Mental Health services and Mental Health Services for Older People with a commitment to increasing access and engagement in inclusive and meaningful activity to improve wellbeing and sustain recovery.

I really value partnership working and reaching across various projects.

Currently, this is with a focus on evidencing and embedding physical activity and green space access within the acute hospital setting to address the inequalities and improve health outcomes of our service user population.

“In the Smart Sensing Lab, everything we build is targeted at a specific user or collaborator. So we don't want to keep things in academic papers. We don't want to keep them in the lab. We want them out in the wild – in the hands of users.”

The Lab’s work is not going unrecognised. NTU has nominated “Tag With Me” for its the research project of the year submission to the Times Higher Education Project, selecting this project above others from the university. Prof Kanjo is suitably humble about their chances.

“They have chosen Tag With Me because it has very strong connection with end user organisations, including the county council, the park management and the hospital. So hopefully, we will have good chance, but you never know.”

Once you see the Tag With Me platform in operation, in the hands of people, and see the difference it can make to bring any location or activity to life, you really do sense the possibilities that the technology brings. Watch this space to see how Smart Sensing Labs continues to improve lives.

“I feel like we have had good feedback, people spending longer outside, more time in the fresh air and walking for a bit longer”

JENNY BAILEY OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE HEALTHCARE

UNLOCKING 5G’S POTENTIAL WITH NETWORK SLICING

As communication service providers look to find new revenue opportunities, we assess how network slicing could be the key to unlocking its potential

The integration of 5G networks is progressing

rapidly every day. A huge improvement on 4G speeds, 5G opens up numerous opportunities while removing network congestion and enabling us to connect with each other and the world with ease. As it offers higher bandwidth, lower latency and reliable wireless internet connections, 5G wireless technologies have the potential to transform several industries and consumer experiences. Due to this, Shamik Mishra, Chief Technology Officer Connectivity at Capgemini Engineering, explains: “Machine-tomachine communication and connectivity for critical infrastructures like public safety, manufacturing and ports can now reliably interconnect devices, taking the full benefit

of data and cloud to deliver new revenues, better productivity and new experiences.”

With 4G generations and previous wireless networks, all devices received the same service, but, as different industries have different requirements for their networks, it would be more effective for the customer if the networks were differentiated.

“Network slicing is a concept built into 5G standards by 3GPP, which makes this differentiation of service possible. Telecom operators can now create several distinct, virtual, independent networks within the same physical network, each catering to a different kind of service,” says Mishra.

“For example, operators can now offer separate networks for connected vehicles as compared to industrial automation. This makes it more flexible for operators to deliver services and provides increased

Enabling educators. Empowering students.

ALEX SINCLAIR CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, GSMA

reliability to their enterprise consumers, guaranteeing different on-demand service levels,” he adds.

To remain competitive, communication service providers (CSPs) are now looking for ways to unlock opportunities in 5G, following

its successful launch to identify new revenue streams and find new ways to monetise network investments further.

“Network slicing allows CSPs to create major new value for their customers. It also opens new partnering opportunities with Cloud Service and Infrastructure Providers. Through automation, operators can provide new services with cost efficiency and scalability. The role of management automation becomes especially important when the number of customers and slices increases,” comments Mika Uusitalo, Head of New Technologies and Innovation at Nokia.

“Network slicing provides CSPs with an efficient way to package valuable network capabilities into differentiated, SLA-based services in a cost-effective way that can drive profitable growth,” he adds.

“The ability to customise network capabilities also greatly improves operational efficiency, cutting down on the time-to-market for products and services”

Essentially, network slicing is a form of architecture that offers the possibility of creating several customised virtual networks on a common shared physical infrastructure, depending on the specific needs of applications, services, devices, customers or carriers. It allows multiple logical networks to be run as virtually independent business operations on a single common physical infrastructure, efficiently and cost-effectively.

“Network slicing allows CSPs to create major new value for their customers”

MIKA UUSITALO

HEAD OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATION, NOKIA

The introduction of network slicing has the potential to optimise infrastructure utilisation and resource allocation.

Improving 5G efficiency with network slicing

With network slicing, giving dedicated bandwidth to users at the edge of the network without having to build private systems over a wide area results in a network more responsive to the customers' needs.

It is now possible, for example, to provide an in-person augmented reality gaming experience for consumers at the edge of the network, delivered through the edge cloud and without building specific radio systems in a physical location to support it.

“Network slicing is all about offering service-level-driven services. These

Ericsson on 5G infrastructure

“On top of an existing 5G network, the infrastructure needed to facilitate network slicing is a modern OSS and BSS architecture, which provides automated business and operational processes to efficiently manage network slices and maximise revenues.

“In particular, OSS orchestration is the key component that ensures the required network functions are flexibly created, quickly deployed, and automatically managed throughout the life cycle.”

- Blessing Makumbe, Vice President and Head of Digital Services U.K. & Ireland, Ericsson

services are based on giving customers dedicated bandwidth and/or low latency capacity for services that span the RAN, edge and cloud, ultimately making their offerings more customisable based on their customers' unique needs.

“It also allows CSPs to create additional revenue-generating offerings and targeted services for key verticals like Blue Lights providers, where network availability and latency are vital considerations,” notes Ian

Goetz, Global Lead, RAN Systems Architect

5G at Dell Technologies.

According to GSMA’s Chief Technology Officer, Alex Sinclair, network slicing has become a prominent feature of 5G because it allows customers to enjoy connectivity and data processing tailored to their specific needs and business requirements. This is particularly important in the 5G era, as different industry verticals are seeking to leverage the power of technology to boost productivity.

“The ability to customise network capabilities also greatly improves operational efficiency, cutting down on the time-to-market for products and services,” explains Sinclair.

“Additionally, network slicing allows businesses to increase the security measures for slices that handle more sensitive processes. It provides greater defences against cyber-attacks, since breaches can be isolated to a single slice,” he adds.

This is particularly significant, as the introduction of 5G has brought new cybersecurity challenges for security professionals. 5G’s software-based systems have more traffic routing points than 4G and have multiple unregulated entry points to the network, which can allow hackers access to location tracking and even cellular reception for logged-in users.

Automation and the future of network slicing

As operators may be expected to maintain up to thousands of network slices, automation will be essential to the infrastructure needed if network slicing is going to unlock the potential of 5G in the future.

“Automation technology will be used to manage slice lifecycle, traffic load, service

“Network slicing is a concept built into 5G standards by 3GPP, which makes this differentiation of service possible”

SHAMIK MISHRA CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER CONNECTIVITY,

“Network slicing is all about offering service-leveldriven services”

IAN GOETZ

LEAD, RAN SYSTEMS ARCHITECT 5G

requirements and network resourcing changes in real-time,” says Sinclair. “To put it simply, automation and the ability to quickly create slices could pave the way for operators to dynamically package and repackage network capabilities for different customers. This is the end goal of network slicing.”

The GSMA estimates network slicing will be worth US$300bn to operators by 2025,

with the bulk of revenue coming from enterprises such as manufacturing, automotive and logistics.

Acknowledging this prediction, Nokia’s Uusitalo concludes: “We will also see some revenue from consumer services, such as delivering broadband using 5G fixed wireless networks and providing cloud gaming. Slicing in both 5G and 4G networks will bring value to a wide range of new use cases in energy, transportation, smart traffic, manufacturing, public sector, ports, smart city, business applications, virtual reality, augmented reality, highquality video streaming and cloud gaming, among others.”

PROTECTING SOCIETY WITH CYBER - PHYSICAL SECURITY

WRITTEN BY: GEORGIA WILSON

PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

IIn the business of building technology to protect critical infrastructure environments, Claroty’s core mission is to secure the cyber-physical systems used to run hospitals, power grids, oil pipelines, water utilities, and many other essential services that we depend on every day.

“We have unique skills and a unique technology platform that is specially designed to detect, manage, and protect all connected devices within the four walls of an operational site, whether it’s industrial, medical, or commercial,” says Simon Chassar, Chief Revenue Officer, Claroty.

“Claroty has evolved significantly since I joined. When I started, the company was on a growth trajectory. There was an increase in the number of attacks in the critical infrastructure environments and increasing regulation. In the years following 2013, there has been a 3900% increase in ransomware attacks in these environments.

“Since joining, we have established a structured organisation, increased our headcount and client base, and grown our revenue year on year by 100%. All of that growth has helped us to stay ahead of threats and to better serve our customers, protecting them from malactors taking advantage of the weaknesses within the critical infrastructure.”

Simon Chassar, CRO, Claroty, reflects on the last two years, the maturity landscape of those in critical infrastructure sectors and Industry 5.0

Simon Chassar

TITLE: CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER INDUSTRY: INDUSTRIAL CYBERSECURITY

LOCATION: SURREY, UNITED KINGDOM

Simon Chassar is Chief Revenue Officer at Claroty, where he leads the global sales organisation including territories, partnerships, sales engineers, sales development, and revenue operations. He brings more than 20 years of IT industry experience across the go-tomarket on hardware, software, and services at multinational organisations such as NTT, Cisco, Avaya, VMware, and Actifio. Prior to joining Claroty, he served as CRO of the security division of NTT, where he ran a sales channel, and marketing organisation of more than 300 people, delivering over $1.5 billion in revenue across products and services. Chassar is part of the World Economic Forum for Oil & Gas Security.

“Since joining, we have established a structured organisation, increased our headcount and client base, and grown our revenue year on year by 100%”

Claroty: protecting society with cyber-physical security

On the cusp of a revolution: Industry 5.0

From the mechanisation of production through to automation and connectivity, the industrial sectors are on the cusp of a new evolution: Industry 5.0.

“While Industry 4.0 saw connectivity of the end-to-end processes, Industry 5.0 harnesses all these other smart devices out there to effectively drive the optimisation of factories and production; humans and intelligent devices through connectivity,” says Chassar.

He adds, “Increasingly, we are seeing those in the industry look at how they can optimise further by reducing waste, accelerating production, reducing energy, and improving health and safety through greater connectivity –not only in production, but across different functions and supply

chains, as well as automating functions where possible.

“We are on that cusp now, where more organisations are heading in this direction regarding their future strategies. But, with greater connectivity of machines comes greater exposure to new kinds of cyber threats, which the machines are often not equipped to withstand. Ensuring that connectivity goes hand-in-hand with security is imperative for ensuring the safety and resiliency of the world’s critical infrastructure.”

The maturity landscape of those in the industrial sector

Although most organisations (60%) are only now going through the awareness phase and beginning to understand that they have these connected assets in their industrial environments, many continue to struggle to determine how they communicate or where they are located.

Digital Safety + Process Integrity = Cybersecurity for Industrial Environments

With over 100 years of combined OT/IT Industrial, Enterprise and C-suite experience, Velta Technology helps clients:

• Take proactive steps to protect Operational Technology (OT) from adverse cyber events

• Discover and correct vulnerabilities relating to physical outcome producing equipment

• Facilitate internal discussions between OT, IT, and the C-Suite to ensure cybersecurity ownership on the plant floor

Velta Technology Get Safer Sooner.

Industrial Environments, IIoT and Digital Safety

Craig Duckworth, President and Co-Founder of Velta Technology, discusses IIoT, cybersecurity and partnering with Claroty to stay on top of the industry

Craig Duckworth is the President and one of the co-founders of Velta Technology , providing Digital Safety, operational integrity, and cybersecurity for industrial manufacturing and critical infrastructure environments. “Communication between IT and Operational Technology (OT) teams is vitally important, and we believe OT needs to own the safety and security of the plant floor. IT security tools and solutions can’t be overlayed onto equipment in the Industrial Control System (ICS) environment. The two environments and skillsets to successfully manage and protect are very different.”

Velta Technology’s partnership with Claroty

Velta Technology’s leadership team made the strategic decision to work only with top industrial cybersecurity companies – with Claroty a leader in asset visibility and

monitoring solutions for industrial networks. “We bring value to Claroty’s clients because of our deep understanding of the inner working of OT and IT environments, and the full potential of their industrial security solution. Velta Technology is not an IT cybersecurity technology company trying to move into the OT space. We understand process integrity and the inherent risks of plant floor equipment, which are unique to industrial environments. We help our mutual clients fully embrace what Claroty and our expertise at Velta Technology can offer.”

A unique Velta Technology advantage is their team. “Our leadership team has over a hundred years of OT practitioner experience, and team members are degreed engineers that understand process integrity, ICS environments, and how to maximize Claroty’s solutions within the OT space,” said Duckworth.

The Future of IIoT and OT according to Velta Technology

Over the next year, Duckworth sees Velta Technology poised for continued growth as a market leader. “Our deep understanding of the Claroty platforms combined with our rich knowledge of Industrial Control Systems, allows Velta Technology to highlight the value of Claroty and what they do for the OT space.”

Learn more

“Because of this, many organisations were not prepared for the last few years and remain unprepared for the years to come,” explains Chassar.

“Currently, only 30% of organisations actually understand their assets, know how they communicate, and where they are located – and even fewer, 10%, have full vulnerability awareness of every single asset within their production and operational environments, understanding how they communicate and how they can mitigate threats,” he adds.

While awareness is on the rise, the industry needs to be quicker if it is to successfully tackle malactors as they enhance their sophistication and maturity level.

“In most cases, malactors or cyber criminals are effectively mimicking what would be a normal OT operator: they get inside the environment, start to learn and understand it – and, in most cases, more so than the companies themselves. So the discussion now at a boardroom level is how the industry can mitigate these risks because it is now a question of business continuity,” says Chassar.

“Compliance and governance are also driving this need for organisations to take action and develop a standard framework.”

Innovations in cybersecurit

When it comes to innovation, Chassar is seeing clear investments being made in Claroty’s deep domain expertise area within industrial environments. “Organisations are innovating in network policy segmentation, user identity permissions, and network policy management to mitigate risks,” he says.

SIMON CHASSAR CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER, CLAROTY

“I’ve also started to see more innovation in secure access, making sure that organisations have specific tools to access the physical systems' environment for every user and that can only be accessed by that user. This reduces the possibility of back door risks to the industrial environment.”

Being prepared for a cyber attack

“If an organisation doesn’t have a policy or project underway, then they should start one immediately,” says Chassar.

He explains that it is imperative to understand where the assets are, how they communicate, and where they are most vulnerable. Once they start this process, the organisation needs to get to at least the same level of understanding as the criminals in order to manage this risk.

“While Industry 4.0 saw connectivity of the end-to-end processes, Industry 5.0 harnesses all these other smart devices out there to effectively drive the optimisation of factories and production between humans and machines”

“The next step on from this is to look at who has access to the environment and control that access. Knowing who’s connected, when, where, and to what system is critical. Then organisations should look at how to respond to and recover from potential attacks, and, finally, look at how they can detect attacks,” explains Chassar.

Chassar also emphasises the importance of deploying the best technology. “With one hour of downtime having the potential to cost

CLAROTY AND ITS PARTNERSHIPS

Dedicated to building a safer society and protecting all critical infrastructures and industries, Claroty strives to build the best technologies to maintain the supply of essential products and services – healthcare, fuel, energy, food, water – by protecting them from threats as they become increasingly interconnected.

“Our aim is to build the best technology and provide the best research to make everyone aware of the vulnerabilities out there and report on what the cyber criminals are up to, so our partners are critical to our delivery. We have an array of partners working with us, from advisors to system integrators, managed services and automation vendors,” says Chassar.

“We have a broad range of partners that help our customers to protect themselves against the adversaries out there to create a safer society.”

SIMON CHASSAR CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER, CLAROTY

“With this greater interconnectivity of machines comes greater exposure to risk, so we have to make sure that we protect these newly formed connections”

“Currently, only 30% of organisations actually understand their assets, know how they communicate, and where they are located – and even fewer, 10%, have full awareness of the risks and vulnerabilities affecting these assets and how to mitigate them”

SIMON CHASSAR CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER, CLAROTY

80%

of respondents experienced an attack

47% reported an impact on their OT/industrial control system environment

More than 60% paid the ransom

52% paid more than US$500,000

90% disclosed the incident to their shareholders or authorities

60% are centralising both OT and IT governance under their CISO

62% are supportive of government regulators enforcing mandatory and timely reporting of cybersecurity incidents that affect IT or OT/ICS/XIOT systems

The global state of industrial cybersecurity independent survey results, 2021: Resilience amid disruption, Claroty

a manufacturer £5mn, deploying the best technology that you can helps you gain a full understanding of the risks and vulnerabilities within your environment. It can also help to identify early signs of anomalous behaviour, so that you can find out if a process is not operating as it should be before any damage is done,” says Chassar.

What does the future hold?

Over the next 12 to 18 months, Chassar expects to see an increase in the volume of regulations centred around critical infrastructure environments. “There are already many regulations underway in the United States, Australia, and Germany, and I believe that this will, in turn, drive the next wave of reporting compliance,” says Chassar.

“I expect to see more innovation when it comes to the Extended IoT (XIOT) which will drive IT security and control vendors to partner with domain specialists – like Claroty – to deliver a much more holistic cybersecurity strategy.

“Collaboration and shared knowledge will be a key trend in the future to enrich each other's understanding of a very complex environment.

“I also see society placing more demand on factories to be faster and more efficient in the way they produce goods, as well as being more eco-aware by using less energy and reducing waste. With this, though, an increasing number of physical systems will become connected that will need protecting. Finally, I see a greater use of cloud technology as we see Industry 5.0 accelerate and organisations look to how they can be more interconnected with end-to-end efficiency, as well as be more energy efficient.”

aren

MCLAREN RACING & ALTERYX ANALYTICS: DATA - DRIVEN TO WIN

aren

McLaren CEO Zak Brown, Head of Technology Ed Green, and CDAO at Alteryx, Alan Jacobson, detail the widespread organisational benefits of good data

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In the white heat of another exciting F1 season, Technology Magazine was lucky enough to visit Silverstone’s McLaren Racing Paddock Club to speak to McLaren Racing and Alteryx Analytics about their partnership, which is already reaping numerous benefits for both parties as the 2022 season hots up.

I spoke to McLaren CEO Zak Brown and their Head of Commercial Technology, Ed Green, as well as Alan Jacobson, Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Alteryx, to explore how analytics are embedded into McLaren Racing’s ecosystem.

Competing in four racing series – F1, Indycar, ExtremeE and Esports –motorsports’ royalty McLaren Racing are a mainstay of the racing calendar and part of a global motorsport revenue that increased last year by 87% to US$2.14bn, while F1’s global TV audience hit 1.55bn in 2021.

ALAN JACOBSON

“If data is the fuel, then a diverse range of data-literate domain experts are the drivers needed to accelerate the delivery of those business insights”

CHIEF DATA & ANALYTICS OFFICER, ALTERYX

Alan Jacobson

With over 11.8 billion data points analysed at speed to simplify the process of designing the 80,000 components that make up an F1 car, Alteryx optimises race performance and helps the McLaren Racing team utilise efficiencies as they innovate, test and develop their cars for prime competitiveness.

McLaren Racing & Alteryx: Run the Numbers

They were the first team to have a carbon fibre tub in the 1980s, something now ubiquitous in the world of motorsports, and Brown is proud of McLaren’s heritage in “putting driver safety first and also being world leaders in the field of aerodynamics”.

This ethos stretches outside of F1 and into supplying the NHS throughout the pandemic with ventilators, providing lightweight materials in areas such as prosthetics and even helping key partners such as Unilever to improve ice cream production from a sustainability standpoint.

“We’ve worked with airlines, too, in terms of how to keep them in the air for longer, because they don’t make money when

they're grounded. Even at the gate, we have helped them find ways to make gains and speed up the process.” says Brown.

“F1 is known as a gateway for innovation, pioneering important technology for other industries outside of the sport to follow in its tracks.”

The origins of the partnership

Alteryx became a partner of the McLaren Racing Formula 1 team in early 2021, and Jacobson revealed that it was the “perfect enabler for Alteryx to participate in this technical, analytics-driven sport”.

“Formula 1 has always been at the cutting edge of technology. Working with McLaren

ZAK BROWN CEO, MCLAREN

Racing is a great way to demonstrate the power of the Alteryx platform in automating the complex, tedious business processes needed for better, faster decision-making.”

The partnership is an excellent opportunity for Alteryx to sell what they do to other businesses, and Brown acknowledges that at McLaren, they want Alteryx to be able to do that for everyone aside from other F1 teams.

“Ultimately while F1 is quite specialised and not necessarily the largest business for Alteryx within itself, but it is the opportunities within the partner ecosystem where Alteryx can really benefit long term. F1 is a fantastic B2B platform, attracting a lot of C-level executives. It’s very attractive to CTOs, CIOs and CFOs, regardless of which lane they are in,” says Brown.

This is not only a union of two brands that pride themselves on spearheading innovative technology to enable everyone to achieve excellence in their performance, but Jacobson adds that it is “a great way to illustrate how many different data points

are collected and analysed to make critical performance decisions”.

McLaren Racing were looking for an analytics platform to help deliver insights, both on the business and performance side. As a team always looking to refine learning in ways that help them go quicker, the Alteryx technology partnership with McLaren Racing aligned perfectly with the Alteryx mission: to enable everyone to make decisions faster.

By transforming the way data is collected and providing accessible, powerful and intelligent analytics automation at speed, diverse teams of domain experts at McLaren Racing can upgrade from refining data to delivering new insights and intelligence to the team in minutes.

The democratisation of analytics Formula 1 racing is a perfect demonstration of how a data-rich environment can be harnessed and analysed to find key signals in complex data, driving insights at tremendous speeds. But, while the power of datadriven insights cannot be understated, Jacobson suggests that “many businesses outside of F1 and McLaren Racing are in a situation where a wealth of data – but a poverty of insights – is stalling similar performance results”.

The IAA (International Institute of Analytics) has a five-stage model that assesses and maps ‘analytics maturity’ for businesses.

“This research shows where organisations are on their five-stage journey to being truly analytical and data-driven. While highlighting that analytically mature, data-driven companies constantly deliver, shockingly, the average company score is 2.2 If data is the fuel, then a diverse range of data-literate domain experts are the drivers needed to

“F1 is known as a gateway for innovation, pioneering important technology for other industries outside of the sport to follow in its tracks”

ZAK BROWN CEO, MCLAREN

“Ultimately, while F1 is quite specialised and not necessarily the largest business for Alteryx within itself, it’s the opportunities within the partner ecosystem where Alteryx can really benefit long term”

A tour of McLaren Technology Centre with Zak Brown, CEO

accelerate the delivery of those business insights,” says Jacobson.

The partnership is about more than just fine-tuning fast cars. The Alteryx platform is crucial throughout the entirety of the McLaren Racing team’s activity, from the race track to the back office.

Leveraging the Alteryx platform, McLaren Racing are seeing results across many different areas, and the people who are driving those results are not all technical analysts.

Jacobson adds: “What is now happening is that domain experts in different areas are able to create breakthroughs using a combination of data, domain expertise and accessible, self-service analytics technology that is easy to use – empowering them to learn more about analytics as they apply their domain knowledge.

“By providing the analytic capability that almost anyone can use, McLaren is successfully democratising data and analytics across team members.”

While helping the McLaren Racing team drive advantages across their F1 races and also their back-end operations, the team is part of just 24% of companies the IIA reports are at ‘Stage Four – data-driven’.

Ed Green, Head of Commercial Technology at McLaren, continues: “The democratisation of analytics across the team allows users to create self-service insights. Having use cases ranging from business analysts in HR to Extreme E race engineers allows us to leverage a common platform across McLaren. Ultimately, this helps us to make more data-driven decisions whilst allowing the team to share and engage fastpaced workflows.”

Engaging with the F1 fanbase

One area McLaren are playing with is the Metaverse, where they collaborated with Roblox to release a number of features, all to be unlocked by fans. Roblox is a global online platform with millions of virtual experiences

ED GREEN HEAD OF COMMERCIAL TECHNOLOGY, MCLAREN

available across a wide range of devices, including PC, Xbox, mobile, and more.

McLaren worked with development studio 'The Gang' to recreate the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) for the virtual launch of their 2022 challenger, the MCL36.

“We know that we have hundreds of millions of fans, and we know 15-20 million of them quite well – but not well enough to have a continuous engagement with them,” Brown continued.

From what they do on race days, their viewing habits both on location and at home, what they like to buy and where they live, Alteryx is helping to fill this knowledge gap alongside a newlyappointed Director of Fan Engagement.

Brown adds: “F1 has a huge amount of growth when it comes to fan engagement. We were late, as a sport, to digital due to the previous broadcast model.”

The fleeting nature of a competitive edge

F1 is a sport where data is everything. With 300 hundred sensors on the cars, a typical race weekend can consume around 1.5 terabytes of data.

“The democratisation of analytics across the team allows users to create self-service insights”

Ed Green

“Across McLaren Racing, we use Alteryx to build and share workflows across multiple departments – whether we’re problem solving with wind tunnel data analysis or streamlining marketing data processing, the ability to create and distribute workflows allows us to work effectively as a team,” says Green.

By allowing both first time and experienced users to have access to current and past workflows, Green concludes that this “drives new ideas and encourages collaboration between data users of all backgrounds across our organisation”.

Brown continues: “It’s one thing to get data, but it’s another thing to get it quickly and amalgamate it to make the data relevant. Otherwise, it’s just a lot of noise.”

Speed of time to insights plays a big role, but on the subject of the ‘racer instinct’, Brown says that, if he had to rely solely on his own instinct, without access to all the data on the screens fed in real-time, “9 out of 10 times, I would have been wrong; on the pit wall, however, you need a blend of both – a human still needs to make a final, informed decision”.

In the year since the partnership began, Brown was keen to outline that the biggest benefit was “helping understand the difference between good and bad data”.

With Alteryx new to the sport, “the willingness and desire for customisation is something that has impressed us”.

“To adapt and flex and hear what we need, and then provide solutions, has been transformative,” Brown says. “F1 is all about gaining the edge as quickly as possible for as long as possible. You can have regulations changing and competitors copying each other. It’s very much a developer war.”

BT & THE MOD: A PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DEFENCE RELATIONSHIP

WRITTEN BY: İLKHAN ÖZSEVIM

BY: GLEN WHITE

Jonathan Cole (CB, OBE), Director, Defence at BT

Jonathan Cole (CB, OBE), Director, Defence at BT, talks about Data, Tech and the Private and Public Defence relationship

A

lot of people aren’t aware that the army runs an external placement scheme for officers and that such schemes can act as bridges between the private sector and the traditionally public world of defence.

The technical knowledge and expertise gained can run in both directions, thereby strengthening both sectors and propelling strategy and development, providing mutual benefits to defence as a whole. Jonathan Cole, CB, OBE and Director of Defence at BT, is one of those bridges and, due to his extensive knowledge and expertise, is an important asset to BT.

“I took part in the placement scheme as a fairly senior officer,” he says, “as I was a Brigadier who was about to be promoted to Major General. For six months, I had the opportunity to come and work for BT.”

At that time, Cole worked in the technology unit of BT rather than where he is now – in its Enterprise business, which is one of the customer-facing units. “I really came here to have a breath of fresh air, to learn about the commercial world and about some of the technologies that are out in the commercial sector that defence was potentially not utilising. In many ways, it was a chance for me to understand another large enterprise with a lot of parallels to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).”

Some find it conceptually challenging to think about defence in terms of the private sector – and even more so when it comes to the relationship between the public and private sectors in this regard – but the parallels between them are striking enough, and the potential reciprocity significant enough, to force them to rethink their longheld biases.

“When I look at BT and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), roughly speaking, they've got a similar sized workforce: both have a global footprint; and both, of course, also have all the advantages and disadvantages of being large organisations,” says Cole.

“For me, it was a really valuable learning experience on how to operate and thrive inside a large organisation. The focus of my secondment was really to prepare me for my next job as the Army Chief Information Officer (CIO), and, at that time, it didn't really occur to me that I would end up working at BT. But actually, as it happened, I had to sign a contract – as did BT – with the understanding that they wouldn't try to recruit me (and that I therefore wouldn't leave the army) within a given time period, in order that the MoD got a return on the investment of letting me go for six months.

Cole joined BT seven months ago, having spent a full military career in the British Army. He was a Major General and had joined the Royal Corps of Signals (the Army's specialists in IT, Cyber and Information). Towards the end of his military career, Cole was the CIO for the Army, working at board level – involved in strategic-level decision making – as well as programme leadership and delivery.

Now at BT and running BT’s Defence team, his expertise in light of the cyclical nature of IT, cyber and information in relation to the ever-integrative public and

private sectors renders him a fine asset for the position.

“I have a team of people in BT who are established to be really customer-facing, focused on the MoD as our customer, but drawing from the wider Enterprise business in order to deliver the products and services to meet our customer needs,” he says. “What I find really exciting is that, having grown up in defence and spent a full career there, I principally, passionately believe in the outputs and the outcomes of the MoD. So, even though I'm in my second career, I now find an opportunity to keep contributing, and our role is really to deliver and operate a whole range of IT services to the MoD.”

Cole holds personal accountability and responsibility for operational excellence in his role, as well as for the profits and losses of service delivery and future business sales.

Nevertheless, he says: “What I love about my job is that I have end-to-end responsibility, the delivery of which I am

held accountable for across the entire spectrum of live service delivery and operations for customers, as well as for future programmes in-flight, including change management. I also look at the ways in which we can help and partner with defence – (and with others in the defence community) – to deliver the sorts of IT services that the MoD desperately needs.”

Over the last 20 years, BT has predominantly been delivering to the MoD through two main contracts: the Defence Fixed Telecom Service (DFTS) and the Integrated User Service (IUS). Both of these programmes, along with other programmes delivered by other industrypartners, contribute significantly towards what the MoD now calls the ‘Defence Digital Backbone’ (DDB).

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT

“What I find really exciting is that having grown up in defence and spent a full career there, I principally, passionately believe in the outputs and the outcomes of the MoD”

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT

TITLE: DIRECTOR, DEFENCE

UNITED KINGDOM

Jonathan (Jon) Cole is the BT Defence Director, operating as a part of BT Enterprise. He leads the Profit and Loss account, which includes business development, sales, major bids, service operations and contract management. His business unit currently provides services to the Ministry of Defence through Defence Fixed Telecommunications System (DFTS) and Integrated User Services (IUS) and some other contracts that are crucial to Defence’s role.

Jon is excited to be leading his team at a time of great change for defence. He is committed to working with his customers and partners to help deliver a modern, secure digital backbone that users can exploit. BT is a trusted partner with world-leading technology products and services that can assist defence in many ways in pursuit of the national interest.

Prior to joining BT, he completed a 35-year career in the British Army,

culminating at Major General as the Army’s Director for Information, which included being Chief Information Officer at Board level. He had a wide range of operational, policy and acquisition roles, predominantly in Digital & Information Technology, Intelligence and Security. He holds the honours of CB and OBE for his service.

A Chartered Engineer with the Institute of Engineering and Technology, he has a BEng(Hons) in Electronics, an MSc in Defence Technology, and an MA in International Security and Strategy. He is an active participant in a range of activities including road cycling, hillwalking, running, surfing, paddle boarding and skiing – all of which he enjoys with his wife and his four (now adult) children. He is a member of his local church, and he is also active in support of charity work, predominantly as Colonel Queen’s Gurkha Signals and a board member of the Gurkha Welfare Trust.

Jonathan Cole

“BT has a really strong functional model. What this means for me is that I'm able to pull from the best-of-class people who are doing programmedelivery and excellence”

“This,” says Cole, “is really a coalescence of technology, people, data, businessprocesses and operating, and, of course, the use and management of data – and allowing data to be the central aspect of defence's business.”

With the exponential growth of big data and technological development, along with all of its ramifications for security, there is a marked increase in the emphasis on data-centrism in defence industries. This stands to reason.

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT

“The two major programmes that we work on at the moment – the DFTS and the IUS – will eventually come to a natural end, and the MOD will recompete and run for new business”

Cole says: “BT has been part of that journey as it has in many ways, really moved from being a traditionally telecommunications focused company to trying to work further up the stack and understand how we can help our partner to make that journey to datacentricity, and, of course, doing that in the context of significant cybersecurity threats.”

“We are already very much a trusted partner of the MoD, and are one of its major suppliers,” he continues. “The two major programmes that we work on at the moment – the DFTS and the IUS – will eventually come to a natural end, and the MOD will

recompete and run for new business. Naturally, we wish to be in the running for future business and by no means take that for granted. What we seek to do is partner with defence and, where appropriate, the wider network of partners out in the defence industry – as well as the wider commercial environment – to deliver the successor programmes for those in parallel to that.

“BT recently launched a new Charter for its Enterprise customers to provide them with a springboard for growth. This will be delivered through a greater focus on innovation, world-class cybersecurity, a new suite of digital services, customer service improvements and purpose-driven goals. For example, we recently set up the Division X unit within BT’s Enterprise business, which will accelerate the development of customer solutions that integrate emerging technologies such as 5G, IoT, Edge Compute, Cloud and AI.

“I also think that our defence team needs to exploit the opportunities for that. An example might be private 5G networks to enable Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to be deployed and find business opportunities for our customers, which can improve either their productivity, efficiency, operational outcomes or their security. There's all sorts of use-cases to do that, and we want to be part of that journey. We want to move ourselves into an environment where we can exploit the technologies available and help the customer to really move on its own digital transformation.”

As with a lot of organisations, BT’s Enterprise unit has a small business development team working on defence. They also have a sales team that includes account managers and a frontline command-facing customer engagement team.

BT & the MOD: A Public and Private Defence Relationship

“So, we have people that run the accounts-facing Army, Navy, Air Force and Strategic Command – the four key pillars of the MoD; we're not just focused on a centralised part of defence, but are working with our customers and helping them across all pillars, from a sales perspective.

“Additionally, we have all of the enabling functions. We're a very functional model in BT. So I depend on Contract Management, Financial, Legal, Project Delivery, Service Operations and Security – a whole, wide ecosystem, all of which is underpinned by technology experts who are, for example, Solutions Architects that work out of our research labs in Adastral Park near Ipswich, where we are able to bring cutting-edge technologies to our customers.

“There’s a really large matrix of people across BT working towards those outputs.”

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT

BT’s defence security strategy and how it excels in its approach Strategically, BT is working very closely with, and gaining an understanding of, the MoD Chief Information Security Officer's strategy, as well as aligning itself with the policies and protocols of the National Cyber Security Centre. This is so that they can ensure that they are firstly, compliant, but also that their customer has confidence in the services and products that they provide: protecting data and making it available for those that need it in order to conduct their operations.

“We work very closely with BT’s security team,” says Cole. “There is a whole operating division inside BT who actually look after security for all sorts of organisations, globally. It's not just defence for whom security is important, so the MoD is, in many ways, mirroring some of the really good practices in other sectors.”

BT’s vertical business unit and its ramifications for defence Cole expresses that, during his time in defence, they had a really 2D model where, in many ways, the single services were more powerful than the individual functions within BT.

“My observation in my last two or three years in the MoD was that it was, however, shifting to an increasingly functional model

– although it still retains a very strong, singleservice organisational approach (Army, Navy, Air Force and Strategic Command).

“By contrast, at BT, I've observed that, while we have our own Chief Executive Officers for each of the customer-facing units – such as inside BT Enterprise (where I work), BT Consumer and BT Global, as well as BT Openreach, which is separate for regulatory reasons – the other customerfacing units, the enabling organisations for digital technology, and the corporate sections have a really strong functional model thread running throughout them.

“What this means for me is that I'm able to pull from a best-of-class team of people who are doing programme-delivery and excellence. Another area would be our Operations Team who are, I believe, a real centre of excellence for best practice, not just across the defence customer but all of our customers. This means that I'm supported by leaders in each of those functions to deliver specialist advice, products and services to my defence customers.”

“The trick is to make sure that I collaborate closely with the Directors of those functions so that we share a collective sense. This means that people are supported by their function, but also that they have a sense of ownership and equity in our outputs and outcomes – and I have the privilege to be able to coordinate those activities.”

“We have people that run the accounts-facing Army, Navy, Air Force and Strategic Command – the four key pillars of the MoD; we're not just focused on a centralised part of defence”

Technology transformation at BT

Howard Watson, the Chief Technology Officer for BT, worked very closely together with Cole and his team to drive digital transformation across the company. Now, the company is increasingly looking at how it can go cloudfirst with many products and services, and also explore strategic partnerships in order to deliver cutting-edge technologies.

Another beneficial aspect of the relationship is the research and development labs located at Adastral Park, where they're able to develop patents – many of which have recently been placed around Artificial Intelligence as well as the visualisation around AI focused on Cybersecurity.

“We have people who are worldleading experts, who are invited to speak at conferences around the globe, and to write academic articles around some of these topics,” says Cole.

“Now, of course, a lot of this is protected by intellectual property rights, but as a company, we’re able to take those technologies and put them into our own internal transformation. The most important thing is to find out how we can use that to partner with our various customers along our vertical segments to actually drive those products and services into their businesses and help them deliver their own digital transformation outputs.

“So, in the defence context, what we need to do is to work very closely at a defence level with the MoD’s Chief Information Officer, as well as with the Single Service Chief Information Officers, regarding their individual and collective transformations, to make sure that we’re partnering with them to ensure that they can get the best value for money, the highest productivity and can really be cutting-edge, delivering quicker, faster and cheaper – which I think is what any taxpayer would ask for.”

BT’s digital community

In working closely with BT’s digital unit, we are subsuming experts from inside of BT Digital – as they have digital consultants – who support them in working with customers on usecases and understanding the relevant personas around those use cases.

“Whilst you might be able to reuse and refactor a lot of the products and services across defence, there will be some particular nuances,” Cole says. “We're trying to make sure that we are partnering with our customers in that as well.

BT’s approach is to pull the best expertise from the company, analyse other verticals, and then place them into the hands of the user, get their feedback, and then iterate. Another example of a vertical they’ve taken best-practice from is in health.

Cole says: “One of my colleagues is focusing on helping the NHS to digitise, and I think there's some really good ideas of what they're doing to help provide cutting-edge technology into the NHS. Some of that can be reused within health organisations inside the Ministry of Defence.”

“Whilst you might be able to reuse and refactor a lot of the products and services across defence, there will be some particular nuances”

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT

Enterprise Architecture

BT has Enterprise and Solution Architects who work at different layers across their programmes.

“What we need to increasingly do is work closer with the Defence Enterprise Architecture Team, and I think that's growing – but there's still a lot of work to be done in that regard with our customer; we're trying to ensure that we have alignment there,” says Cole. “When our existing programmes are being modified, we need to make sure that's coherent with the principles of a decent architecture around enabling open standards to make sure that there’s reuse of components where possible, that security is built-in by design, and that it's both data-centric and user-centric.”

“What we need to increasingly do is work closer with the Defence Enterprise Architecture Team, and I think that's growing”

BT provides data and networks across all sectors. “If anybody's a fan of premiership sport, they will probably find a lot of the sport that's getting to them is media and broadcast from BT. We take data and insights from that. We look at the network performance, we look at latency, and we have resilience plans so that if, for example, a link drops, there's another link immediately available. What we need to do is to take insight from live operations. We run analytics on that and also have visualisation there, as well as command centres.”

So, BT has to make sure that they’re providing solutions that will match the architecture in Defence, which requires a real understanding of the whole breadth of the Defence-IT ecosystem, yet can be very large and complex.

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT

BT has a Networks Operating Centre and a network of Security Operations Centres across the globe, providing ‘follow the sun’ security services. They also have subcomponents of these, based on particular customer environments. They then have the callcentres who deal with customer management, as well as on specific tactical issues, but behind the scenes, BT is looking at the data and insights for the performance of their networks.

“But with a strong team of architects and the people in my team with in-depth defence knowledge – many of whom have either served in Defence like I have, or who've worked with the Defence customer for 20-odd years – they of course understand the environment really well. It's all about collaboration and implementation of our experience.”

Cole says: “We look at the security threat landscape and at associated incidents. We work very closely with the National Cybersecurity Centre, sharing incident reports and threat intelligence between our organisations. We also share this information with like-minded partners to help build our collective resilience against the evergrowing volume of cyber threats.”

“Over the last two years, there's been a real growth in our smart bases, taking best practice from what BT has done elsewhere”

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT

Partnership, Collaboration and Fortinet

It can’t escape readers that defence is not only bolstered, but actually enhanced, enhanced by collaboration and partnerships. The strength of such relationships is becoming ever more apparent, and the strongest and most effective organisations are those who, in every sector, are willing and open to collaboration.

Cole says: “Over the last two years, there's been a real growth in our smart bases, taking best practice from what BT has done elsewhere.

“A really good example is Belfast Dockyard, where we have enabled them to effectively digitise their operations and achieve amazing returns on their productivity. We have taken some of those technologies and we've worked with individual frontline commands –Army, Navy and Air Force – to also help them digitise in their smart bases. We've depended, of course, on partners to help us to do that. And, given the constraints on the global supply chain during the pandemic, in many ways, one of our greatest challenges

JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR, DEFENCE, BT to the critical path of delivery has been the availability of components.

“Our partner Fortinet has worked really closely with us as we've sought to roll out the smart bases. We have proofs of concept in place now with the Army, Navy and Air Force, and Fortinet has been a really key partner with us in delivering those proofs of concept – where, already, the customer is starting to realise benefits.”

The next 12 to 18 months are really crucial for BT’s Defence team. They have some major contracts coming towards their exit phase. They also have lots of potential new business coming their way, and presently have a major bid in, the outcome of which

“What we are recognising is that defence is changing the way that it's managing its business. It is increasing its use of frameworks, and is, in many ways, disaggregating large contracts”

will become clear over the coming months, as well as other bids that they’ll be looking to work on in the near future.

“We are also working with other partners to support them in some bids that they're leading, and have lots of new business in the pipeline,” says Cole. “What we are recognising is that defence is changing the way that it's managing its business. It is increasing its use of frameworks, and is in many ways, disaggregating large contracts. We need to recognise how we can work into those, either through frameworks or through formal bids. In many ways, we're waiting for our defence customer to clarify what some of those programmes

will look like in the future. I know that I will speak for many of my industry colleagues in anticipation of that. We are potentially waiting on opportunities and are really keen for defence to share with us what those programmes look like, the shape of them, the way that they're disaggregated, when they'll come to market and by which commercial vehicles.

“We are ever-ready to provide world-class products and services with our partners, and put them into that defence network.”

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY WELCOMES THE WAREHOUSE OF THE FUTURE

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics are just some of the technologies that are going to transform and automate the humble warehouse

BY: CATHERINE GRAY

Just like many other industries, the manufacturing industry is going through an immense period of change. Industry 4.0 and the introduction of new, disruptive technologies are, together, bringing about a number of opportunities for the industry, with many set to transform their warehouses to streamline processes and improve efficiencies. These new technologies are crucial as manufacturers battle challenges to drive profit and improve efficiency. One key challenge is the trade-off between inventory accuracy – which is so crucial because it ensures that workers picking products from locations to fulfil orders are as productive as possible – and the costs needed to achieve that accuracy.

Cost is another important element for the industry to consider, because incorrectly fulfilling an order can be very costly due to returns, waste, chargebacks and high reverse logistics costs.

“The ‘warehouse of the future’, as we’re calling it, brings together the latest technology under one roof. It creates a logistics command centre that’s driven by innovation,” says Sandeep Sakharkar, Chief Information Officer at GXO, the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider focused on helping businesses solve their supply chain challenges through expertise, advanced automation and a global network of warehouse space.

SANDEEP SAKHARKAR CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, GXO

“There are a handful of key benefits that this warehouse of the future offers. First, it’s significantly improving productivity and efficiency. Second, it’s optimising the roles and contributions of our team members. And, third, by improving safety and ergonomics for our team members and leading to a higher level of engagement, it’s helping them increase quality and productivity, creating a virtuous circle,” he continues.

Sakharkar goes on to explain that this future iteration is improving throughput control and the ability to flex work processes for speedy adaptation in the face of rapidly changing demand, which benefits customers – particularly those that have the sort of demand peaks common in the fashion industry.

Securing the ‘warehouse of the future’ with technology Additionally, the warehouse of the future is providing better real-time insights into processes and product movement, which enables intelligent decision making, according to the CTO.

“The benefits from this approach aren’t just in the technologies themselves, but also in the process and frameworks used for

“The ‘warehouse of the future’ brings the latest technology under one roof. It creates a command centre driven by innovation”

ARASH GHAZANFARI

CTO, UK, PRESALES, DELL TECHNOLOGIES

making investment decisions in technology. The time, effort and other resources needed for evaluation, R&D, piloting and operationalising are all critical factors, which means the process and criteria for selecting technology for evaluation become as important as the technology itself,” comments Sakharkar.

“Today, technology innovations in a variety of areas unlock opportunities for improving operations and creating

value, so no company can afford to ignore the potential. The procedures and objectives for pursuing technology innovations that are important to my company would be important to any large global company in any industry.”

GXO is keen to be part of this transition to the warehouse of the future and has operationalised several innovative technologies.

“For example, we’ve deployed collaborative robots, or cobots; goods-toperson robots; layer pick and palletising automated guided vehicles, or AGVs; palm scanners; and vision technology,” he shares.

“We have a very structured and active process for researching, evaluating, piloting and then operationalising new

“By adopting a RaaS model, businesses can focus their resources on strategically identifying the business outcomes they wish to achieve”

technologies. We’re also continuously evaluating both emerging and maturing technologies in our innovation pipeline. For example, we’re evaluating vision tech and autonomous drones for inventory and scanning; exoskeletons and movement-tracking to enhance safety and ergonomics; and further improvements to ever-evolving bot technologies.”

It is important, Sakharkar explains, that technology is not boxed off as just physical hardware as it goes beyond that, spilling into artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

“Through machine learning, for example, we use data and modern integration technologies to improve real-time insights and the speed of interactions across a diverse set of technologies,” he notes.

IBM: automating the supply chain for warehouse success

The internet of things (IoT), among other technologies, is also key as the world becomes increasingly digitised. Looking specifically at manufacturing, IoT connects physical production and operations with smart digital technology, ML, and big data.

In doing so, it creates a more holistic and better-connected ecosystem for those companies that focus on manufacturing and supply chain management.

“IoT is key to automation in factories and warehouses. In addition to tracking products through the supply chain in warehouses and for goods in transit, IoT can be used to automate factories,” explains Janet White, Industrial Products Leader at IBM Consulting.

“Robots can be used to provide realtime information on the status of machines to support predictive maintenance and reduce downtime. Cameras capture

Arash Ghazanfari, CTO, UK, Presales, at Dell Technologies on IoT and the warehouse

“Increasing productivity, safety, visibility, and efficiency are some of the key benefits of leveraging IoT in warehouses and distribution centres. IoT sensors can measure temperature, humidity, pressure, location, and movement. Leveraging these metrics can result in better automation and orchestration of warehouse operations.

Proximity sensors can help with damage avoidance. Stock and inventory management can be automated. The stock level data and a measure of throughput per item can also be used as powerful signals, providing the business with the ability to accurately forecast demand and maximise revenue generation opportunities. Tracking the movement of items allows the warehouse to maintain an optimum state and improve operational efficiencies, as well as the overall safety of the environment.”

Meet Amazon's First Fully Autonomous Mobile Robot

Amazon introduces first fully autonomous robot

Proteus moves through Amazon’s facilities using in-house developed safety, perception, and navigation technology. Developers say the robot was built to perform its work and move around employees. It could also help with non-AI hardware, claims Amazon, lifting GoCarts, the nonautomated, wheeled transport used to move packages through the company’s facilities.

images for AI algorithms to detect defects – all increasing efficiency.”

IBM clients are already leveraging the power of IoT and AI with a personalised dashboard that automates the collection of information and analyses it to provide insights, which helps them anticipate risks, mitigate disruptions, and see opportunities previously hidden from view.

“Using this dashboard, they can do things like leverage predictive maintenance to stay ahead of machinery repairs in the field, reducing costs by 15-20% and extending the lives of assets by years,” notes White.

Adopt a RaaS model for warehouse success, says Dell Undoubtedly, those who opt not to automate their warehouse operations will massively lag behind and risk missing out on a number of opportunities for growth.

However, particularly when it comes to robotics and automation, it can be incredibly costly for smaller companies to invest in such technologies.

“Adopting a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) consumption model means the organisation does not need to have any knowledge of robotics or invest in costly infrastructure. It, therefore, reduces the initial up-front cost commitment and accelerates time-tovalue,” explains Arash Ghazanfari, CTO, UK, Presales, at Dell Technologies.

RaaS models enable organisations to focus their capital and human resources on further business improvement whilst continuing to deliver innovation and value to their customers.

“By adopting a RaaS model, businesses and organisations can focus their

JANET WHITE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS LEADER, IBM CONSULTING

resources on strategically identifying the business outcomes they wish to achieve and what aspects of their operations they wish to automate, without having to expend valuable funds and resources trying to figure out how they are going to achieve it,” says Ghazanfari.

“In addition to tracking products through the supply chain and goods in transit, IoT can be used to automate factories”

Using technology for good: Make-A-Wish UK’s digital journey

PRODUCED BY: KRISTOFER PALMER WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY

Around the world, an incomprehensible number of children are suffering from illnesses that, in one way or another, significantly affect their lives and those of their families.

In the UK alone, there are tens of thousands of children living with lifelimiting or life-threatening conditions, with their loved ones having to face the almost impossible task of adapting to this new normal while maintaining a sense of positivity.

For many of these children, their childhood looks drastically different to how it did before. But, through the work of its significant volunteer base, Make-A-Wish UK seeks to offer a moment of respite and happiness to both children and their families. Make-A-Wish UK is determined to put issues associated with childhood illness aside and empower children with the opportunity to choose a wish that's unique to them.

This is a particularly powerful thing as the lives of many of these children are wholly dictated by their health needs; the wish creates hope, with the culmination inspiring

As Make-A-Wish UK continues to support ill children and their families, Sarah Watson explains how tech will drive the mission forward

Sarah Watson, Make-A-Wish UK

happiness and positive memories for the whole family to cherish.

“We've got more than 43,000 volunteers around the world, and we've granted over 520,000 wishes worldwide,” says Sarah Watson, Director of Finance and Technology at Make-A-Wish UK.

Right now, more than 63,000 children in the UK are eligible for a wish because they have a life-limiting or life-threatening condition, and the charity is dedicated to supporting as many of these children as possible, but sadly, as Watson explains, “the reality at the moment is that we can't reach all of the children that we need to”.

Dedicated both to her role and the families Make-A-Wish UK supports, Watson and her team are sharply focused on how technology can enable the charity to deliver more wishes in an efficient and cost-effective way.

“We are quite unique because, if every wish is as unique as the child that wishes for it, that's actually really quite hard for planning.

“From a tech point of view, the key thing for us is to really think about that real-time information – we need to look at how we make sure that the minute that a child wishes, we have the technology and digital products in place that can really send that ‘beacon’ out into the community to attract the resources needed to grant it, because as soon as that's in place, we can do that,” notes Watson.

“This is why things like gifts-in-kind are really important to us because, as a registered charity, when we commit to grant a child’s wish, we’re

making a financial commitment to the cash cost of funding that wish. So, if we don't have a strategy that allows us to access partner funding or gifts-in-kind, we're always limited by the amount of reserves that we hold,” she adds.

Gifts-in-kind are a kind of charitable giving in which, instead of giving money to buy needed goods and services, the goods and services themselves are given. For Make-A-Wish UK, this could be anything from virtual reality equipment and costumes to specialist cars and gaming consoles.

SARAH WATSON

TITLE: DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY

INDUSTRY: NONPROFIT, CHARITABLE ORGANISATION

LOCATION: UK

Sarah Watson is the Director of Finance and Technology with Make-A-Wish Foundation® UK. A transformative leader, Sarah is focused on bringing people and networks together to problem solve for maximum impact.

Previous roles have included Director of Finance and Operations for Social Investment Business, who have provided over £400m of grant and loan funding, and Head of Finance and Core Services for Cochrane, a global independent network of researchers, professionals, patients, carers, and people interested in health.

Sarah is an independent Trustee for the Royal College of Paediatrics and

I wish to have a gamingPC Aiden, 7 Blood cancer

GEORGE’S GHOSTBUSTER WISH

George was born with only half of a working heart. His wish to be a Ghostbuster, take a ride in an Ecto-1 car, and go ghost hunting was an imaginative escape into a world where the heroes are different and brave – just as he has had to be during three life-saving operations. It was also a positive reminder of all the things he CAN do, even when he can’t run around like his friends.

When Make-A-Wish shared George’s wish story in April 2022 to highlight some of the wishes waiting to be granted, Ghostbusters fans and communities from all over the UK rallied round offering to help grant George’s wish.

For example, Peter Cooper from Manchester, who runs Film Car Hire, offered to drive George in his replica Ecto-1 car, which was used in Sony’s promotion of the most recent Ghostbusters film.

George's wish to be a Ghostbuster is granted!

On top of gifts-in-kind, Make-A-Wish UK also receives funding from the general public and partners, enabling them to purchase different things to make a wish a reality.

Like all organisations, Make-A-Wish UK relies on money to fund projects but faces challenges like many not-for-profit organisations around fundraising do, and as Watson notes, because of this the charity is limited by what it can do.

“That's really where finance, governance, data and tech come together. It's about acknowledging the barriers that are there, making sure we've got the frameworks that keep us safe and secure from a governance perspective so that we do all the right things and record things in the right way,” says Watson.

To help with this, Salesforce provides MakeA-Wish with its main service delivery platform, giving the charity a 360-view of a wish.

“We also use that for our fundraising – it's the platform that we're really actively developing to get that real-time marketplace environment, which will allow us to connect our wishes directly to the resource that's required to put them together,” Watson explains.

I wish to be a Ghostbuster George, 8 Epstein’s anomaly

“It allows us to focus on the magic – not the admin – of a wish, so that's really important to us”

SARAH WATSON DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY, MAKE-A-WISH UK

“We need to stay relevant, and we can only do that by connecting with companies who are operating in this space”

SARAH WATSON

Technology-enabled wishes to meet the changing needs of children

To marry its technology with its mission, Make-A-Wish UK applied to be part of JP Morgan’s Force for Good programme, which aims to use resources and technology skills to create sustainable solutions for nonprofit organisations.

The JP Morgan team helped the charity create technology and a user experience that is magical, inclusive and inspiring, aligning with the values of the organisation.

SARAH WATSON DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY, MAKE-A-WISH UK

“With JP Morgan, we were able to utilise tech to help with the replacement of cash for gifts-in-kind with the help of an app. So, rather than asking donors to give us cash to fund a wish, they could instead donate a gift of absolutely anything – from a car to balloons to food, to all of the things that make up the component parts of a wish. Once the wish story is uploaded in Salesforce and we know what's needed to grant it through the creation of a wish design, that requirement is pushed out through a stock management system to the app to our donors and asks them to contribute,” says Watson.

“Strategically, it is just fantastic because, if you imagine it's almost this virtual promise into a pledge matched to a wish and the donor can see exactly which wish they're supporting, the condition of the child, why it's important. It's a really unique

“Gifts-in-kind are really important to us because, as a registered charity, when we commit to grant a child a wish, we’re making a financial commitment to the cash cost of funding that wish.”

I wish to be an astronaut Aiden, 5 Rare heart condition

giving experience. It allows us to focus on the magic – not the admin – of a wish, so that's really important to us,” she adds.

By adding this technological solution to Make-A-Wish UK’s roster, Watson shares that JP Morgan is supporting the organisation in the best way possible: helping the not-forprofit to deliver on those promises made to children more effectively and with ease.

Technology is critical for all points of the wish-granting experience. One famously memorable wish was for a young boy called George who wanted to be a member of the Ghostbusters – a wish that went viral on social media.

media is a really powerful tool, and the wish with George is a great example of that. It shows people what we do, but also encourages more support from the public. Also, by focusing on the gifts-in-kind, we really open up what's possible to absolutely everybody via social media. We want all of our children to benefit from the opportunity for people to donate in whatever way they might be able to,” explains Watson.

Equally, technology supports the execution of wishes, too, as Watson notes: “Many of our children are not able to participate in the world as other children are. They're not connected in the same way. Some of them aren’t at school and technology is their only window to the

I wish to have a gamingPC Aiden, 7 Blood cancer

“When we talk about getting that message out about how people can help us, social

outside world, this is how they connect. They connect to their friends, and they connect to the outside world.”

“Often, their wishes are linked to technology because that is where their happy place is. That's the thing that gives them the escape from the treatment or whatever critical illness. And it takes away the barriers, they can be anything in that online space,” she continues.

Ultimately, Make-A-Wish UK knows that it needs to adapt to the changing, digitallydriven world we live in. Both in school and at home, children are exposed to the wonders of digital daily and are growing up increasingly fascinated by the world of technology.

“We need to stay relevant, and we can only do that by connecting with companies that are operating in this space and can help us to properly offer all that technology has to grant wishes. As a charity, we are always hugely grateful for additional support, and would encourage anyone interested in helping grant wishes through effective tech partnerships to get in touch,” comments Watson.

Selecting a partner for success

When it comes to selecting partner companies, Watson explains that Make-AWish UK is focused on ensuring partners are aligned with the non-profit's’ visions and values.

But it’s equally as important that MakeA-Wish is completely candid with partners regarding finances, as the not-for-profit company “doesn’t have the budget of organisations”, according to Watson.

“Value exchange – what's invested for what we achieve – is important for both parties because, very often, organisations will partner with us on a kind of corporate social responsibility basis or they'll offer discounted rates.

“The other thing we found, particularly with the partnership with JP Morgan, is that we need to be a good partner. If somebody working with us is on tight margins, or in the case of JP Morgan free of charge/probono we need to be respectful of their time because otherwise they're not going to continue to work with us,” she continues.

Another key player in Make-A-Wish UK’s partner ecosystem is Totem, an events technology company that enables organisations to build inclusive digital communities and deliver engaging in-person and virtual experiences.

“In 2021, as a response to COVID-19 preventing our children from being able to be granted Disney wishes, A Disney Wish UK was created by Disney and Make-A-Wish UK Create,” explains Watson.

“This wish ran over a number of weeks, with families staying for a rotation within this. The admin for this – booking activities and meals, for example – was a highly manual activity and, this year, we partnered with Totem to support us in building an app to make this not only an admin start option, but, more importantly, a real enhancement for our wish children and families. They can book activities and meals on the app, be sent reminders, build excitement through the use of video and QR codes at the wish book, and collect rewards.”

I wish to be aprincess

Amber, 12 Batten disease

“The reality at the moment is that we can't reach all of the children that we need to”

SARAH WATSON DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY, MAKE-A-WISH UK

“Totem turned the app around in a really short time frame, and their attention to detail, including making families aware of the sensory impact of activities, has been something that we have been incredibly impressed with,” she surmises.

Additionally, Watson has to ensure that technology protects the families that share such sensitive information with them supported and helped by OwnBackup. The company has helped Make-A-Wish UK protect its data and safeguard itself from potential breaches or losses.

This is particularly important as the organisation has stringent GDPR processes in place.

“We take our responsibilities incredibly seriously in terms of the data that we can and we can't share. Also, the permissions that are given to us by wish families, because not every family wants any story shared actually, and that's fine. So being able to record all of that and make sure we treat our data as we need to and as we should, is

incredibly important and OwnBackup help us with that,” explains Watson.

“They've been an amazing partner. They've allowed us to integrate their backup solution into our Salesforce environment, which means we have full visibility over our data and ensure we regularly audit and back up the data stored in our Salesforce system.”

“That wasn't something that was possible before we began to work with OwnBackup. I mean, that's all you can say about when partnerships work, you make something possible that wasn't, before you entered into that. And that's what we've been able to do with them,” she adds.

Securing the future of Make-A-Wish UK with more investment in tech As each year passes, the Make-A-Wish UK team know how important it is to keep up with the changing world of business as well as childrens’ wishes. Watson notes how important

technology continues to be as the organisation improves its operations.

“My technology manager's catchphrase is #automateallthethings. But, in all seriousness, the more we can do with that, the more it allows us to increase our operational efficiency,” explains Watson.

Concluding, she adds: “We want to focus on how we build frugality, not rigidity. So, if we want to flip this to a marketplace environment, we need to create a vibrant community of activity that's centred around wishes and making sure that real-time information draws those resources to wishes.”

“That will enable us to grow the number of wishes that we grant, the community that supports them – whether that's active supporters and donors, whether that's through cash or gifts-in-kind – and, equally, partners.”

TOP 10

TECH

STARTUPS

WRITTEN BY: TILLY KENYON

The tech startup sector is full of companies capitalising on growing demand for digital tools. According to the latest forecast by Gartner, worldwide IT spending is projected to total US$4.5tn in 2022, an increase of 3% from 2021.

A constantly developing industry, technology startups are keeping up with the changes by bringing new products and services to the market at breakneck speed. Spanning the AI, fintech, cybersecurity industries and more, we take a look at 10 of the top tech startups.

As technology continues to develop and be applied to a wide range of industries, Technology Magazine takes a look at 10 of the top tech startups globally

QuEra Computing 10

A neutral-atoms-based quantum computing startup, located in Boston, QuEra’s mission is to build the industry’s ‘most scalable’ quantum computers to tackle problems for commercially relevant applications in optimisation, simulation, materials science, pharmaceuticals, and more.

The company came out of stealth mode last year with US$17mn in funding from Rakuten, Day One Ventures and Frontiers Capital. It also received a DARPA award and has already generated US$11mn in revenue.

“QuEra’s mission is to build the industry’s ‘most scalable’ quantum computers to tackle problems for commercially relevant applications in optimisation, simulation, materials science, pharmaceuticals, and more”

Confluera 09

Confluera is a leading provider of next-generation Cloud eXtended Detection and Response (CxDR) solutions. It delivers real-time infrastructure-wide cyber kill chain tracking and response by leveraging a ‘Continuous Attack Graph’ to stop and remediate cyberthreats in real-time.

The company’s technology automates cyber attack analysis, making both small and large security teams more efficient.

08

Serve Robotics

Founded in 2017 as the robotics division of Postmates – and spun off into an independent company in 2021 – Serve Robotics is shaping the future of sustainable delivery. The company designs, develops and operates zero-emission robots that serve people in public spaces, starting with food delivery. Earlier this year the company closed a US$13mn funding round that included money from Uber and 7 Ventures, the venture capital arm of 7-Eleven.

Hiya

On a mission to modernise voice with trust, identity and intelligence, Hiya’s Voice Performance Platform connects businesses with their customers, protects people from spam and fraud calls, and helps carriers secure their networks for all.

Hiya’s SaaS applications, Hiya Connect and Hiya Protect, serve more than 200 million users, power services like AT&T Call Protect and Samsung Smart Call, and deliver voice performance insights to businesses across the globe.

07

“Over the years, Marc has gained knowledge unmatched by many others in the procurement and supply chain industries”

The connected supply chain turns volatility into opportunity.

The

supply

tackle

channel, supply, logistics, and global

direct

The

control of supply

meet customer

06

StreamYard

StreamYard is a live streaming studio that can be used in a browser, with no need to download an app. It features a share screen capability, enabling users to interview guests and stream directly to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn Live.

The platform allows hosts to stream pre-recorded clips and display live comments on the screen. It also helps users record live streams and download the audio or HD video recording. Creators can personalise their live streams with brand logos, colours, banners, name tags, backgrounds and more.

05

Halborn

Halborn was founded in 2019 by ethical hacker Steven Walbroehl and growth hacker Rob Behnke. It builds security products and provides end-to-end cybersecurity advisory services for the top Web3 organisations in the world.

The cybersecurity firm serves both traditional finance and blockchain-based clients, recently announcing the completion of a US$90mn growth of equity in financing, the first external funding in the company's history.

DeepL Translator 04

Launched in 2017, DeepL Translator is a German AI company that strives to overcome language barriers through AI.

Its neural networks (NN) are able to capture nuances and reproduce them in translation. Since its launch, the company has been developing a new generation of NN using a novel design. With this design, DeepL’s networks learn to grasp the subtle meanings of sentences and translate them to a target language in an unprecedented way.

Moonpay 03

MoonPay launched in 2019 with the aim to increase cryptocurrency adoption. It set out to create a secure software solution that would enable people from all over the world to participate in a digital revolution.

Founded by Ivan Soto-Wright and Victor Faramond, the fintech offers a user-friendly solution to enable global users to manage their cryptocurrency trading and investments.

In November 2021, the company closed its Series A funding round at US$555mn, bringing its total valuation to US$3.4bn.

“Since its launch, the company has been developing a new generation of NN using a novel design”

Observe.ai

Observe.AI provides natural language tools to track voice and text conversations. Its Intelligent Workforce Platform transforms contact centres by embedding AI into customer conversations, optimising agent performance, and automating repeatable processes that drive revenue and retention.

In March, the company stated that ARR was up 150%, with customer interactions analysed by its AI up 3x, a 426% increase in AI-powered agent evaluations, and a 201% increase in AI-powered agent coaching sessions.

To date, Observe.AI has raised US$213mn in funding, with its latest round of Series C funding in 2022. Earlier this year, when it raised $125mn, the company explained that the money would be used to continue building out its technology and move into more markets.

“Observe.AI provides natural language tools to track voice and text conversations”

Landing AI. About Us.

Landing AI

Landing AI provides deployment-ready AI solutions and enterprise-wide transformation programmes for customers worldwide.

Founded by Dr. Andrew Ng, Co-Founder of Coursera, Former Chief Scientist of Baidu, and Founding Lead of Google Brain, the company is positioned to help businesses successfully move their AI projects from proof-of-concept to full-scale production.

It helps customers to realise the business and operational value of computer vision using enablement tools. The company's flagship product is LandingLens, an enterprise MLOps platform that offers end-to-end workflow to build, iterate and operationalise AI-powered visual inspection solutions.

LandingLens is also equipped with data preparation tools and workflows that help users achieve optimal data accuracy and consistency.

World-class efficiency

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN WRITTEN BY: GEORGIA WILSON

World-class energy in Kajaani

Acelebrated pioneer in the sustainable development of ICT services, CSC is committed to promoting climate targets across its entire operations.

As such, through supporting the green transition, reducing its carbon footprint, and achieving positive green growth, CSC aims to minimise the environmental impact caused by its activities.

The company is working in collaboration with UPM and AMD enhancing its data centre in Kajaani/Finland to offer worldclass energy efficiency. “The key to energy efficiency is for all the energy consumed by data centres to be spent on meaningful activities i.e. computing power with low PUE. And the waste heat generated by the DC operator is used sustainably. This also lowers the energy cost significantly,”

Jukka-Pekka Partanen, Hannu Havanka, and Andrew Dieckmann discuss their collaboration in Kajaani to create a safe, secure, and energy-efficient ecosystem

explains Jukka-Pekka Partanen, Data Center Ecosystem Director in CSC - IT Center for Science.

A modern business park in Kajaani, based on an old UPM paper mill, hosts more than 40 customers including data centres. Kajaani Data Center Program has ambitions to further grow its customer base with both national and international clients.

“We want to create a synergy of benefits within the ecosystem for the data centres and the companies related to them. We also want to expand and deepen the knowledge on invocation of data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as support Kajaani and the wider Kainuu region’s visibility, reputation work, internationalisation and business,” explains Partanen.

CSC

Founded in 1971, CSC - IT Center for Science is a Finnish centre of expertise in information technology. It is owned by the Finnish state and higher education institutions. CSC’s mission is to provide high-quality ICT expert services – internationally – for higher education institutions, research institutes, culture, public administration, and enterprises.

CSC’s Kajaani Data Center Program was created to attract new national and/or international data centre customers to Kajaani, as well as create synergy benefits as part of its ecosystem for the data centres; expand and deepen its knowledge on invocation of data, machine learning and artificial intelligence; and support Kainuu’s visibility, reputation work, internationalisation and business.

UPM

Founded in 1996, UPM is a large Finnish forest industry company. UPM provides a variety of products made from wood. Due to the structural changes in paper making, many of the organisation’s paper mill facilities are

empty. UPM aims to implement new ways of operating on these premises. UPM Is dedicated to creating a future beyond fossils.

While its core business isn’t real estate, after closing its paper mill activities, UPM has grown dedicated to developing its real estate into locations suitable for other usages.

AMD

Founded in 1969, AMD has driven innovation over 50 years in high-performance computing, graphics and visualisation

technologies–the building blocks for gaming, immersive platforms and data centres.

AMD employees are focused on building leadership high-performance and adaptive products that push the boundaries of what is possible. Billions of people, leading Fortune 500 businesses, and cutting-edge scientific research institutions around the world rely on AMD technology daily to improve how they live, work, and play. For more information about how AMD is enabling today and inspiring tomorrow, visit the AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) website, blog, Facebook and Twitter pages.

JUKKA-PEKKA PARTANEN DATA CENTER ECOSYSTEM DIRECTOR, CSC - IT CENTER FOR SCIENCE

Creating a safe, secure, and energy-efficient ecosystem

Working collaboratively, CSC has developed a strong partnership with UPM and AMD to develop a safe, secure and energy-efficient data centre ecosystem to Kajaani.

“AMD believes strongly in environmental sustainability and energy efficiency improvement efforts. We have announced an ambitious goal to achieve a 30 times increase in energy efficiency for AMD processors and accelerators from 2020-2025,” says Andrew Dieckmann, Corporate VP & GM for the Data Center GPU Business Unit at AMD. “We are also dedicated to creating a future beyond

EXECUTIVE BIO

JUKKA-PEKKA PARTANEN

TITLE: DIRECTOR, DATA CENTER ECOSYSTEMS

COMPANY: CSC

LOCATION: KAJAANI, KAINUU, FINLAND

Jukka-Pekka Partanen works

at CSC - IT Center Ecosystems and is based in Kajaani. He has been at CSC over 10 years and, before that, spent almost 20 years at Nokia Mobile Phones.

Partanen has been involved in the Finnish data centre industry for the past 10 years, being one of the founds of the Finnish Data Center Forum association and an active board member until recently. In that role, Partanen has worked with a range of colleagues on the global research infrastructure scene, as well as with major international data centre operators and investors.

Most recently, Partanen has been focusing on growing the Kajaani Data Center Ecosystem, where LUMI - one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world - is leading the way. The Ecosystem programme is supported by the city of Kajaani, the Kainuu Region, and local partners.

“The waste heat generated by the DC operator is used sustainably. This also lowers the energy cost significantly”

ANDREW DIECKMANN

CORPORATE VP & GM FOR THE DATA CENTER GPU BUSINESS UNIT, AMD.

ANDREW DIECKMAN

TITLE: CORPORATE VP & GM FOR THE DATA CENTER GPU BUSINESS UNIT

COMPANY: AMD

LOCATION: GREATER SACRAMENTO

As general manager of the Data Center GPU team, Andrew is responsible for the overall business management, Product Management and Strategy, Product Marketing, Business Development and Business Operations teams.  Andrew has spent his 20+ year professional career defining and building products for the data centre market, including compute, memory and storage solutions that help to power many of the leading cloud services and data centre technology platforms.  The data centre GPU team at AMD is focused on providing the world’s leading accelerator solutions, powering the world’s biggest AI clusters and HPC supercomputers enabling new scientific discovery and AI advancements that will provide tools, capabilities and innovation previously not thought possible.

“AMD believes strongly in environmental sustainability and energy efficiency improvement efforts”

LUMI — world-class supercomputer

fossil fuels. Sustainability is at the core of our company,” adds Hannu Havanka, Vice President of Real Estate in UPM Kymmene Oyj.

As part of their joint efforts on this front, the three are supporting the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, which harnesses and develops top-of-the-range supercomputers to boost Europe's scientific excellence and industrial strength, and to support the digital transformation of the EU's economy.

One such supercomputer is located at Kajaani. “LUMI was ranked third on the Green500 list, published on 30 May 2022. The supercomputer was built on world-class environmental sustainability and costefficiency criteria. It helps the European ICT sector to drive the greener, more costefficient operations necessary to reach the EU’s ambitious climate targets and pave the way for the green transition. With the smallest possible environmental burden and lowest cost for European taxpayers, LUMI is beyond compare,” says Partanen.

The LUMI system leverages a coherent CPU and GPU interconnect using AMD Infinity Fabric™ technology, which offers high-speed, low-latency interconnect, a unified memory for applications and boosts efficiency.

“Applications using HPL code leverage this coherent interconnect to run the serial portions of the code in the CPU, with the parallel portions of the code on GPUs ensuring an efficient use of both the high performance of the AMD EPYC™ CPU cores and AMD Instinct™ GPU compute units. This also helps intelligently manage the data movement, thus simplifying programmability and easing the adoption of GPUs for HPC applications,” explains Dieckmann.

He continues: “The LUMI system also has a downstream NIC directly attached to each

of the Instinct MI250X GPUs that operates at 25Gbps, permitting low-latency messaging from GPUs to off-node, helping to overlap computation and communication, thus efficiently using the system and improving overall performance. These innovations are critical to deliver a system that can deliver 152PF of peak and 62.7 GFlop/W, achieving the #3 spots in both the Top500 and Green500.”

Partanen adds: “The LUMI supercomputer is a really unique data centre investment in Kajaani. It is a top modern and efficient project that was completed in the agreed timeframe and budget. Kajaani is a proven location suitable for data centres and data centre ecosystems. As a proof, LUMI data centre has already won three international competitions in the most innovative project category.”

BIO

EXECUTIVE

COMPANY: UPM

Hannu Havanka is the Vice President Real Estate of UPM Kymmene Oyj, a Finnish-based listed forest company acting globally. Mr. Havanka is an experienced realestate professional and has, through his career, worked as a developer, investor and corporate real estate in global perspective including investments and workplace development projects.

HANNU HAVANKA

TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT REAL ESTATE

LOCATION: VANTAA, UUSIMAA, FINLAND

“We are also dedicated to creating a future beyond fossil fuels. Sustainability is at the core of our company”

HANNU HAVANKA VICE PRESIDENT REAL ESTATE, UPM KYMMENE OYJ

Raising awareness of Kajaani and its capabilities

A unique data centre ecosystem with world-class solutions and services, CSC, AMD and UPM strongly believe in the capabilities of the Kajaani site and the opportunities it can provide to drive business growth.

“We have a proven data centre ecosystem at Kajaani. There is plenty of room for those in the data centre business sector to grow in our park facilities, where we offer world-leading speed-to-market delivery – thanks to the brownfield site – and a smooth permitting and planning process,” says Havanka.

As both interest and visibility grow in the Kajaani area, CSC is dedicated to growing businesses related to its programme, finding new operators that can benefit from hosting a part of their footprint in the Kainuu region, Finland.

Such benefits and opportunities of operating in the Kainuu region include:

• Cost efficiency - inexpensive electricity and reimbursement from waste heat utilisation.

• World-class references - such as the LUMI EuroHPC project.

• One of the most eco-effective data centres in the world - small carbon footprints and surplus amounts of renewable energy are in increasing demand.

• Data - extremely effective connection.

• Supply of HPC environments - CSC has strong knowledge alongside a track record of reliability and excellence in this area.

• Unique ecosystem - offering professional partner expertise, dedicated education, and RDI.

“We want everyone to understand the opportunities and benefits that can be gained from housing their data centres at our base in Kajaani. Our data centre ecosystem with the LUMI EuroHPC supercomputer as its public reference significantly strengthens Finland's – and especially Kainuu’s – role in the European and global high-performance computing ecosystem,” says Partanen.

He concludes: “At the same time, it will strengthen the national and international status of Kainuu’s ICT and Data Center services. Kainuu now has the opportunity to take advantage of the new prospects and build its data centre ecosystem to a new improved level. Now is the perfect time to attract new operators, to establish their presence as the world’s best data centre location.”

CSC:

AMD:

Scalable and sustainable precision immersion cooling

WRITTEN BY: JOSEPHINE WALBANK

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

The drive towards net-zero CO2 has ignited innovation across every industry sector, but none more so than the world’s data centres.

Today, the dual demands of high performance and improved sustainability standards mean the risks for data centres are higher than ever, as those that do not match the pace of the rest risk being left behind.

In conversation with David Craig, the CEO of Iceotope, we discussed how Iceotope’s cooling technologies offer a long-term, seamless aid to sustainability targets.

Readily scalable, holistic solutionswhat Iceotope brings to the cooling market Iceotope’s precision immersion cooling solutions are a prime example of data centre technologies aligning with the ever-expanding and ever-changing nature of the industry.

“I would describe our difference as: we definitely set out to understand the customer’s problem and create a solution that fits,” says Craig.

“If you look at the liquid cooling space today, there are two very dominant technologies in cold plates and tank immersion. Our approach was to say, ‘This cannot just be a technology; this must be a solution that is scalable and serviceable’.

“So, by being in racks and chassis, we fit customers’ integrator models, and we're incredibly serviceable – actually achieving slightly better serviceability than air cooling.”

Iceotope’s high-performance cooling solutions are precisely engineered to help data centres achieve the dual demand of rapid growth done sustainably

Alongside this, the technology also offers a simple, efficient way for data centres to improve their sustainability standards.

“We use a fraction of the raw materials, and we use a fraction of the amount of dielectric coolants – it's cheaper, it's simpler, it's lighter. We don't need to worry about spills, we have superior thermal performance, and we’re able to deliver a better holistic performance to the customer overall.”

Craig explains how Iceotope’s technology makes heat management infinitely easier.

“Today, everything to do with heat in computers is a problem to manage. And actually, adopting our technology removes that altogether, because you're not really cooling anymore. What you're actually doing is capturing heat. So, computers run better, they run in more places, they run more inexpensively, but also, you can do useful things with heat, depending on where you are.

“Fundamentally, what we have done is deliver a scalable, serviceable, deployable

“ I think this is one of those times that occurs once in a generation, where incrementalism becomes potentially quite dangerous”

DAVID CRAIG ICEOTOPE TECHNOLOGIES

solution which – by being able to retrofit and scale down to one, as well as up to many –means that the customer doesn't have to go for this ‘all or nothing’ type of approach.”

For Craig, we are only at the cusp of the change that the data centre industry will witness. He asserts that, in the very near future, the usual quick-fix air cooling methods will not be able to keep pace with the technology being deployed.

“I genuinely think that, in five years’ time, we will be in the midst of an avalanche of change. People will be accelerating towards those more holistic understandings and solutions – and customers will be driving that demand much more significantly.

“The young generation, who really care about sustainability, will be budget holders.”

DAVID CRAIG

TITLE: CEO

LOCATION: ILKLEY, ENGLAND

David Craig is CEO of Iceotope.

Having worked his way up through Unisys and IBM in global procurement roles, he moved on to lead the commercial integration of Prudential Assurance and Scottish Amicable. Moving on from the merger to turnaround a leading British refrigeration company and start a consultancy, which he sold three later to Amey. He was then invited to join a late 1990s tech boom disaster, which then became Scotland’s third

Scalable and sustainable precision immersion cooling

As the younger generations rise to positions of higher influence, ESG as an industry priority will only increase. By this point, as Craig asserts, the companies that have not successfully met these standards will struggle to survive, simply because they waited too long to innovate.

Sustainability and high performance - the competitive edge of immersion cooling

As you can imagine, an instrumental factor driving Iceotope’s technological innovation is sustainability. Iceotope’s step away from air cooling has allowed it to achieve green standards that knock its competitors out of the water.

“Everything in data centres, today, has been designed to be cooled by air.

“As a result, it's pretty low density and horrifically inefficient – servers typically run at pretty low utilisation rates to prevent them from throttling. So, they use up large amounts of land, as well as huge amounts of electricity and water resources.”

DAVID CRAIG ICEOTOPE TECHNOLOGIES

In comparison, Iceotope’s technology can improve environmental performance across a number of key areas.

“If you just think about data centres, if our technology was deployed across the majority of the industry, we would reduce the usage of billions of litres of water. The industry consumes enough water to hydrate 10% of the world's population today – that could be returned to people who could drink it.

“However, the impact becomes broader when you step right outside it. If the whole industry got about 30% more energy efficient, you're dealing with the levels of 50MT-of-carbon-a-year reduction.”

To that end, Iceotope’s technologies deliver sustainable cooling in adaptable, bespoke and highly practical solutions. They offer cooling solutions that can be tailored to meet each site’s specific needs, balancing sustainability with optimal performance.

“We have a whole set of benefits that the technology itself delivers: less space, less cost, less energy, and less water – and people get that.

“The key thing that we do to help is actually engage with, listen to and deliver the solutions that they need, as opposed to saying, ‘This is what we've got, here's your fridge, where would you like it? It’s white’. Instead of trying to bend them to us, we are bending us to them.”

“When you do that, you are much more aligned with the customer. It means that we listen to them, and we adopt their thinking into what we develop.”

The global potential, ready to be unlocked Improving cooling solutions may sound like a small step, but alleviating the restrictions imposed by air cooling can reap huge rewards. It promises to not only help data centres achieve a more efficient way of

I really think there is a moral case for growth, but we have to conduct growth in a moral way”

DAVID CRAIG ICEOTOPE TECHNOLOGIES

operating, but to drive higher performance across countless global industries.

“As businesses start to understand how much cheaper and more effective life can be in a chassis-based liquid cooling world, they will accelerate towards it. You paint a picture of a world in which you are using a quarter of the physical space to do your processing, plus half of the energy and virtually no water.”

Beyond the immediate benefits that this will bring in terms of sustainability and business costs, adopting advanced cooling solutions also has the power to transform the way that data centres are run, modelled and implemented, in an increasingly technologically-advanced world.

“If your processes are completely silent or you're not deafening your staff, you can run data centres in city centres. You can run them on the 33rd floor of an office block. You can transform the type of land that you use – using more brownfield than greenfield – fibre can be where the people are, and the data can be processed as close to people as possible.”

As well as the practical advantages, this shift opens up huge possibilities for data and its utilisation.

“We can accelerate the rate and pace at which we adopt AI and those kinds of technologies. And, if you think about the onset from there, adopting AI in healthcare will massively enhance the rates of survival and early diagnosis; it will massively reduce the amount of time that nurses waste on triage and A&E.”

And that’s just one example. This technology can enhance all industries, expanding their capabilities, increasing their efficiencies and making our vision of smart cities a reality.

“

In five years’ time, the young generation who really care about sustainability will be budget holders. And I think you'll see a whole set of people struggling to survive, because they just waited too long to innovate”

“The more that we can transform perceptions of high-performance computing from a wacky thing in the corner to a mainstream high performance that’s powering smart cities, autonomous vehicles, advanced healthcare, advanced retail, then you start to really move forward.”

Alongside this, another benefit of Iceotope’s technology is that servers can be made much smaller than conventional air coolants.

“If they're much smaller, they're also much cheaper with fewer precious metals,

fewer raw materials, fewer component placements, and fewer inventory movements,” Craig explains.

“Actually, the whole supply chain becomes much simpler and much cheaper, while also adding value and margins back in for those who make the devices.”

Can the data centre industry exist without change?

According to Craig, data centres at large continue to use a completely extractive model.

water

power usage

“Most of what has been done is quite incremental – and that's understandable, because there's a lot of risk in the business; you don't want your data centre to fail or to go down, and changes are expensive.”

“It’s totally understandable that you have that kind of constraint sitting there. But I think this is one of those times that occurs once in a generation, where incrementalism becomes potentially quite dangerous, in the sense of actually what the impact could be on our competitiveness. Because there is no

DAVID CRAIG ICEOTOPE TECHNOLOGIES

“ You cannot cost-reduce your way to success. You have to manage costs carefully, but if you're just cutting, you won’t have the space and time for innovating. And it's the innovators that drive things forward”

doubt that ESG is going to be a very, very strong factor in the future.”

In short, adopting sustainable technologies is no longer a choice.

“There's a rising generation of people half my age and less, who really passionately care about the environment. They will be making buying decisions and they will be consumers. And I think they will hold greenwashers to account.

The global drive for sustainability –and the responsiveness of the global data centre industry – has effectively set a pace of change. If not followed, data centres are risking nothing less than the future of their business.

“If we stay in this incrementalist, safe world where we're not joining the dots, it's a dangerous place. Joining the dots and grabbing that vision is what the companies who’ll make a serious impact on the future will be playing towards.”

So, as we look to a hugely promising future for data centres and their increasing role within economies, businesses and societies, Craig has high hopes that the demand for innovation will actually make data centres a solution to aid the world’s net-zero targets.

“I really think there is a moral case for growth, but we have to conduct growth in a moral way.

“We have an obligation to go beyond the balance sheet and do these things because they will make fabulous, fabulous differences to our future. So more technology, moving faster, please. And I think that's why those who remain afraid to change will be caught in a set of perfect storms.”

LUMEN TECHNOLOGIES: SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES ENHANCED BY TECH

BY: GEORGIA WILSON

BY: BEN WIGGER

Annette Murphy, Regional President of EMEA and APAC at Lumen Technologies, discusses the company’s approach to sustainability and use of technology

Lumen is a multinational technology company that enables companies to capitalise on emerging applications and power the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR). This revolution is redefining how we live and work, creating an unprecedented need for an advanced application delivery architecture –designed specifically to handle the complex and data-intensive workloads of next-gen technology and businesses.

“We integrate network assets, cloud connectivity, security solutions, and voice and collaboration tools into one platform that enables businesses to leverage their data and adopt next-generation technologies,” says Annette Murphy, who joined the company in 2021 and leads the strategy for the EMEA and APAC region.

“I have witnessed the company’s evolution into one that is very much a part of the technology ecosystem and aligned with the interests of other large technology companies, like those of our strategic partners – Microsoft, Amazon and SAP,” she explains.

“WE KNOW FROM OUR WORK IN THE INDUSTRY THAT OUR INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS ARE ENABLING SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS ON SUSTAINABILITY”

ANNETTE MURPHY REGIONAL PRESIDENT OF EMEA AND APAC, LUMEN TECHNOLOGIES

VMware Zero Carbon Committed - Partnering for a sustainable future

VMware Zero Carbon Committed providers have set goals to power their data centers with 100% renewable energy or achieve carbon neutrality on or before 2030.

These providers are also VMware Cloud Verified – using the full VMware Cloud infrastructure to provide unparalleled cloud services to their customers.

Lumen Technologies harness the value of cloud with VMware

Guy Bartram, Director Product Marketing & Go-To-Market Specialist at VMware, reflects on its partnership with Lumen Technologies

Founded in 1998, VMware is a leading provider of cloud computing and virtualisation technology, headquartered in the US (California). “We believe that the software we deliver has the power to unlock new opportunities for people and do good for the planet,” says Guy Bartram, Director of Product Marketing & Go-To-Market Specialist at VMware.

He continues: “We are providing the next wave of innovation for our customer base, as well as building a more sustainable, secure future by integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals across the company and aligning them to our core business strategy, especially with our supply chain cloud providers.”

VMWARE AND ITS PARTNERSHIP WITH LUMEN TECHNOLOGIES

For many years, VMware has been in a long-standing partnership with Lumen Technologies from edge computing to workspace and security, VMware has helped Lumen Technologies in many different areas.

“More recently, we’ve worked on delivering a private cloud with the VMware cloud foundation and the Luman private cloud,” says Bartram. Hosted on VMware’s Cloud Foundation ™ , Lumen Technologies’ private

cloud service delivers a public cloud experience that’s encapsulated in a secure and private cloud footprint.

Bartram comments: “Our validated solution offers a consistent operational experience across multiple cloud environments for our customers, as well as having easily replicable blocks that can be customised and builtto-order to meet the specific customer requirements. The solution provides fantastic coverage and a complete solution for customers.”

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE FOR THIS PARTNERSHIP?

VMware plans to continue in its collaboration with Lumen Technologies to drive better outcomes for customers that are looking to move to the cloud, with a particular focus on edge computing and more secure solutions.

“The Lumen Technologies partnership has been very successful, providing a great combination of solutions and capabilities required for customers to transform business processes and customer experience by utilising computer network data services for lower latency and secure applications.”

LEARN MORE

Sustainable practices enhanced by tech

“The Lumen Platform is the fastest, most secure platform for next-gen business applications and data, integrating global network infrastructure, cloud connectivity, edge computing, connected security, voice, collaboration and enterprise-class services into a seamless experience. Our reach and our ability to impact the world is significantly bigger than when I first became involved in the technology space.”

ANNETTE MURPHY REGIONAL PRESIDENT OF EMEA AND APAC, LUMEN TECHNOLOGIES

the different ways that our organisation enables sustainability including diversity, equity, inclusion, governance, environmental sustainability, and commitments to science-based targets,” says Murphy.

Lumen Technologies’ approach to sustainability

For Lumen Technologies, sustainability is an integral aspect of its mission and purpose as an organisation. “Annually, we express

Whilst sustainability has been a part of Lumen Technologies’ core operations for many years, Murphy has seen the opportunities surrounding the movement increase significantly. “Our customers are increasingly focused on how they can leverage the capabilities that we provide to acquire, analyse and act on data in a way that can improve sustainability performance.”

“What used to be a lower priority for many of our customers has now become a top priority, as they set their own targets

“OUR CORE MISSION IS TO FURTHER HUMAN PROGRESS THROUGH THE POWER OF TECHNOLOGY”

for emissions reductions, and work to understand how they can collaborate with partners across their supply and value chain to meet those targets. Our platform’s role in this has become crucial to driving these outcomes,” she explains.

Lumen Technologies’ sustainability focus areas and efforts

When it comes to the sustainability strategy at Lumen Technologies – and the company’s ESG strategy as a whole – Murphy explains that the company has taken a “multi-level approach”. Within this approach, unlocking sustainability through innovation and transparency are core tenets.

ANNETTE MURPHY

TITLE: REGIONAL PRESIDENT OF EMEA AND APAC

INDUSTRY: IT SERVICES

LOCATION: LONDON, UK

Annette Murphy is Regional

President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC) at Lumen. She is responsible for leading the EMEA region and business results in EMEA and APAC.

Murphy brings more than 20 years of experience in the telecoms and technology industries to her role, which includes all aspects of the company’s strategy, go-to-market and customer experience in EMEA and APAC.

A people-first leader, Murphy is passionate about fostering a diverse, inclusive and collaborative company culture. She currently serves as the Executive Sponsor for Lumen’s EMEA Women Empowered employee resource group.

Previously, Murphy was Managing Director, EMEA at Lumen. Prior to Lumen, she held several senior executive roles at Zayo leading sales, commercial and product teams. She also held senior management positions at Geo Networks and BT.

In March 2022, Murphy was named in Capacity Magazine’s 20 Women to Watch power list, which celebrates noteworthy women from across the wholesale telecoms and tech sector.

SUSTAINABILITY TRENDS IN TECHNOLOGY

“Over the course of the last few years, customer focus has been on somewhat simpler indicators of sustainability performance and ambitions, such as GHG emissions. More recently, however, customers have gained a broader, more sophisticated understanding of the different ways that businesses and the value chain can be sustainable,” says Murphy.

“An example of this within our business can be seen in our stakeholders’ prioritisation of network resilience, as well as the ability to ensure the security and privacy of data, and drive our own digital transformation. These issues weren’t traditionally a part of the sustainability conversation.

“What used to be a narrower conversation around a small set of environmental topics has become a much broader conversation around environmental, social and governance topics. People are realising that sustainability needs to be woven into their business and needs to be a part of how they think about not just their values, but how they create value.”

“We know from our work in the industry that our infrastructure solutions are enabling significant progress on sustainability,” says Murphy. “This can be seen in the growth of universal communications and collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of businesses required those services to sustain their business, so we knew that our fibre platform would play a big role in sustainability.”

Similar to fibre, Murphy highlights the significant benefits of migrating applications to the cloud from a sustainability standpoint. “Running your IT infrastructure and operations in a cloud model allows for data consumption to be controlled much better, and for the optimisation and governance of your infrastructure to be much more sophisticated and robust.”

The next level up from infrastructure solutions is collaborating with companies to deliver sustainable solutions that are tied to applications such as smart cities, where the solution is designed with the intent to enable a particular sustainability benefit.

“Examples would be the use of IoT and sensors to enable: reduced energy consumption in buildings; reduced water consumption in agriculture; or reduced waste in manufacturing processes. The solutions that we're designing in coalition with our alliance partners and customers are key enablers of sustainability,” explains Murphy.

“There are also strategic interventions, aspects that we can influence that might not be directly related to our business. These include the ability to support the decarbonisation of our energy systems with the use of Industry 4.0 technologies such as AI to optimise the use of renewable energy by dealing with the persistent challenges of intermittency and storage.

“In these cases, there's a lot of collaboration that needs to happen with

LUMEN TECHNOLOGIES’ CORE MISSION

“Our core mission is to further human progress through the power of technology,” explains Murphy. “One of the great things about our mission is our individual ability to interpret it in our own way.

“For me, further human progress could be enabling customers to optimise their use of infrastructure one day and enabling a startup to deliver a new service the next. There are so many applications that are part of the fourth industrial revolution and equally as many ways technology can be used to improve human lives to create a better, more connected world.”

other companies. To support the digitalisation of those platforms is a great example of how technology enables sustainability across a range of different industries.”

Lumen Technologies and its partners

When it comes to partnerships at Lumen Technologies, Murphy explains that the general ethos is a “‘better together’ story”.

“Our partnerships with cloud providers are a great example of ‘better together’,” says Murphy.

“Most customers going forward will have a hybrid IT infrastructure for the foreseeable future, and cloud will be a big part of that. Having multiple partnerships with cloud, hardware and platform providers gives us the ability to take operational control, providing optimisation and governance across the entire hybrid IT infrastructure.

ANNETTE MURPHY REGIONAL PRESIDENT OF EMEA AND APAC, LUMEN TECHNOLOGIES

“Those partnerships ensure that we're able to apply best practices across a range of different areas and use data to drive better business decisions. With these partners, we are seeing tremendous value delivered to our customers.

Partnerships with VMware, IBM, SAP and HPE

“One of our most important partnerships is with VMware,” establishes Murphy. “Their technology enables a number of different solutions that we provide to both our network and cloud space.

“VMware is a key enabler of our edge solutions, as well as the foundational platform for our private cloud solution. But, more recently, we've been working with VMware to understand how their technologies on our platform address emerging issues around data sovereignty and reducing the carbon footprint of IT infrastructure and operations.”

“Those same issues that we tackle with VMware are also what drive our partnership

with companies like SAP and IBM,” says Murphy. “Their customer engagements are driven by the need to develop new business systems and accounting systems to support carbon accounting and other emerging issues.”

She adds: “Our platform enables them to deploy those solutions at scale, in a way that's more cost-effective and better integrated with existing systems.”

“Finally, our partnership with HPE is also very valuable. We want to ensure that the hardware that we use has the least environmental impact possible over the course of its entire life cycle,” says Murphy.

“Our partnership with HPE ensures that we have not only the best hardware going in, but that our hardware also contains a relatively low level of embedded carbon, can be easily recycled and repurposed, and has a very long life that can be extended to keep the hardware out of the waste stream as long as possible.”

“TO SUPPORT THE DIGITALISATION OF THOSE PLATFORMS IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF HOW TECHNOLOGY ENABLES SUSTAINABILITY ACROSS A RANGE OF DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES”

FASHIONING A NEW PROGRAM CYBERSECURITY

WRITTEN BY: TILLY KENYON

BY: TOM VENTURO

John Scrimsher, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Kontoor Brands, shares how he built and developed the company’s cybersecurity program

On a mission to grow through innovative design and sustainable performance to excite more consumers, Kontoor Brands is made up of iconic names such as Wrangler and Lee jeans.

The global clothing company is a spinoff from parent company VF Corporation, becoming its own entity in 2019. While it may be a publicly-traded retail company with a primary focus on fashion, it faces the same cybersecurity challenges that many of its peers in the retail industry face.

“My role within the company’s mission, of growing to meet consumer needs, is to ensure that I'm keeping up with the innovation and identifying the cyber risks associated with that, as well as helping drive solutions that enable the business to achieve its mission,” said John Scrimsher, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Kontoor Brands.

Scrimsher explained how he works closely with the Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (RH-ISAC). ISACs are non-profit organisations that provide a central resource for gathering information on cyber threats (which, in many cases, are to critical infrastructure), as well as allow two-way sharing of information between their members about incidents, threats, and their root causes. In addition, these organisations offer a platform to share a wealth of experience, knowledge and analysis relating to cyber threats.

Fashioning a new cybersecurity program

“Throughout the industry, we see challenges such as phishing and business email compromise (BEC) remaining top items of concern. Fraudulent activity is another issue, whether it's domain fraud – where people squat on domains and look for new ways to exploit those – selling counterfeit products, or using it as a phishing leverage to make the employees or customers think that they're getting an email from us,” he added.

JOHN SCRIMSHER CISO, KONTOOR BRANDS

team member, allowing him to build the rest of the team from the ground up. The forward-looking program is focused on ensuring visibility to all data processing systems and devices. It also understands the need to have a strong asset discovery and management program for manufacturing, edge devices and all areas of the business.

He explained some of the major principles that he follows when building a program:

• Making it user focused, keeping it simple –

Building a cybersecurity program for the future Scrimsher started at the company in 2019 and was employed as the first cybersecurity

“Complexity is the enemy of security; the more complex we make any solution, the more likely people are to seek out ways around it.”

“COMPLEXITY IS THE ENEMY OF SECURITY AND THE MORE COMPLEX WE MAKE ANY SOLUTION, THE MORE LIKELY PEOPLE ARE TO SEEK OUT WAYS AROUND IT”

• Measurable visibility – It is important to be able to measure that the program has the level of visibility necessary to protect the environment and to increase that visibility where necessary.

• It can withstand scrutiny – A good cybersecurity program should be able to stand the test of time.

• ‘All means all’ – When referring to implementing security methods such as multifactor authentication across all users, all means all. Granting any exception is a potential hole for bad actors to exploit.

Following those principles, Scrimsher has been able to build a program that covers all the areas of cybersecurity from vulnerability management, third-party risk management, identity management and also governance, risk, and compliance.

“We're not going to try to adapt something that may have elements that don't quite fit with what we're trying to do. So, the way I describe it is that my goal is to build a security program for 2025, not adopt and adapt from 1995,” he added.

Dealing with third-party risk

When the world went into lockdown in 2020 – a state that many countries went in and out of intermittently throughout 2021, too – the global fashion industry faced exceptionally challenging conditions. As well as greater scrutiny on sustainable practices and a larger volume of orders to fulfill in a time of almost stationary supply chains, the increase in online shopping created a larger threat landscape to be exploited by bad actors.

Being a forward-looking company that was established just one year prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Kontoor had started out planning for the future. This enabled its employees to move quickly

JOHN SCRIMSHER

TITLE: CISO

INDUSTRY: RETAIL APPAREL & FASHION

LOCATION: NORTH CAROLINA, US

John Scrimsher has over 25 years of experience in developing and leading security organisations across some of the most iconic brands in technology and manufacturing. While based in North Carolina, John has experienced living up in the Pacific Northwest as well as the South east and North East US and appreciates travelling around the world. His experiences with multiple cultures drives his desire to seek new and diverse opinions as a part of the security program. As the CISO for Kontoor Brands, the home for iconic Wrangler, Lee and Rock & Republic Jeans, John has built a forward-looking security program focused on ensuring visibility and resiliency based upon a strong relationships across the business.

EXECUTIVE BIO

to remote working once the pandemic hit, allowing the company to successfully operate its eCommerce platforms.

Supply chains have also been a big issue in the cybersecurity industry, as any difficulties or delays with these can completely shut down business operations and lead to various damages. Scrimsher explained: “One thing we always do is look at the risk levels of the supply chain and, and just like every other company we do face the same risks around supply chain disruptions.”

71% of organisations report that their third-party network contains more vendors now than three years ago. When it comes to advancing business goals, this evolving business environment demands new approaches to third-party risk management that account for the changes in organisations’ reliance on third parties.

Scrimsher is currently chairing the Third Party Risk Management Working Group with the RH-ISAC, collaborating with approximately 30 other companies on defining a set of industry standards that they can implement for all of the third parties and the requirements to attain them.

“It's everything – how do we determine what type of data we share with them? How do we determine what level of network connectivity we provide to them? How do we ensure that, when they have connectivity, we can track their identities to ensure we know who is accessing our systems or our data? So we work very closely

with other retail companies that we would typically consider competitors, but in the cybersecurity world, we're all partners.

“We're all out there trying to help each other protect our customers and our data through setting and maintaining global standards for all of our vendors. That way, our supply chain providers – whether they're software supply chain or product supply chain – all know what to expect, and they can start building their systems to be as secure as the industry is looking for,” explained Scrimsher.

Organisations that suffered a data breach while they had AI technology fully deployed

JOHN SCRIMSHER CISO, KONTOOR BRANDS

saved an average of US$3.58mn in 2020. One way in which Kontoor reduces risk of a data breach is to continuously assess the business and identify trends such as the former.

“As we look to the future, there's always discussions around AI technologies and the metaverse and things like that. It's keeping up with those conversations, making sure we know what types of data are going to be involved, what the risk levels are of that data and then driving the program based on that.”

Keeping emails secure through cyber partnerships

The increase in digital transformation has

meant more people are connected, and also a move to more people working remotely, partially due to the global pandemic. This change in environment has led to a rise in cybersecurity issues, for example the high volume and sophistication of advanced email attacks has caused significant cybercrime losses, with business email compromise losses alone amounting to nearly US$2.4bn in 2021.

Kontoor utilises best-in-class partners to help keep the organisation’s emails safe. “We treat our cyber security vendors as partners.. This is very important for security because that helps them understand your needs better. We need to work with them on a daily basis to ensure that we understand the threats and that they understand our business needs, so that we can implement it as effectively as possible,” said Scrimsher.

“We work very closely with other retail companies that we would typically consider competitors, but in the cybersecurity world, we're all partners”

Since implementing tools provided by cybersecurity partners, such as Abnormal Security, instead of having hundreds of users reporting phishing or attempts at fraud, Kontoor has seen its numbers drop down to single digits – because its partners are catching it before the users ever see it. This has greatly helped the clothing company in reducing the user workload volume, allowing them to become more efficient and do their jobs, whether it's marketing, sales, design, according to Scrimsher.

Facing the unknown challenges

Reflecting on the past 12 months, Scrimsher explained how one of the biggest improvements has been his team's ability to detect and respond to threats. “Having a team that's able to constantly learn, keep up with the trends and be able to protect our company is, I would say, probably one of my proudest accomplishments.”

As the threat landscape continues to grow, so do the challenges that face cybersecurity teams. Businesses are adopting new technologies and solutions, adapting in the face of adversity as they continue to navigate the new challenges. Although these technologies will ultimately lead to strength and innovation in organisations around the world, they can also create new risks and vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

“I would say that technology hasn't really changed the industry, but that the industry is definitely driving the need for new technology. Whether it's automation, better identification, or the machine learning and AI capabilities to better identify the threats. Those are all being developed in response to the needs of the industry.”

New technologies such as the metaverse are causing some concerns about privacy and data security. As everything is built virtually in the metaverse, cyber criminals have plenty of options to hack the data and misuse it for their personal gains. Scrimsher explained how one of the biggest challenges of working in cybersecurity is that they never know what the next challenge will be.

“That’s the security world, there's always a new type of threat that comes up. In the next 12 months, I expect some of the biggest challenges to be really around privacy and deep fakes. As we start moving into the metaverse and AI usage grows, I think it's going to be a challenge for us to really figure out the right way to address that and ensure that we're protecting our users from fraud and other threats.”

“That’s the security world: there's always a new type of threat that comes up. In the next 12 months, I expect some of the biggest challenges to be really around privacy and deep fakes”

JOHN SCRIMSHER CISO, KONTOOR BRANDS

OPEN ACCESS DATA CENTRES

AFRICA’S DIGITAL HEARTBEAT

WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

DATA AFRICA’S

HEARTBEAT

LLate 2021 saw WIOCC - the leading player in the deployment of carrier-scale, futureproofed network infrastructure into Africa - announce US$200mn in funding to launch a new pan-African data centre operator through WIOCC Group company Open Access Data Centres (OADC). Along with this announcement, OADC revealed its plans to invest US$500mn over the next five years in deploying and operating a network of world-class data centres across the continent.

Just over six months later, OADC’s newly appointed CEO, Ayotunde Coker, shares his plans to drive Africa’s digital ecosystem forward: “We want to build at speed, expanding the market and delivering customer-centric value propositions. In Africa, the future is cloud. If you consider the business model for mobile telephony in Africa, its success was ensured by a pay-as-you-go charging model. The cloud is the most effective way to deliver technology solutions to customers – and again, is based on a pay-as-yougrow, pay-as-you-go, pay-as-you-need model.”

“We see significant growth and further opportunity in the hyperscale cloud data centre market. Our new facility in Lagos, for example, is being built in phases to match demand, but can ultimately scale to over 20MW, capable of supporting over 5,000 racks. However, not every location requires facilities of this size. In more regional business hubs, a medium-sized data centre (or ‘midi’), circa 200 to 400-rack facilities, for instance, is more appropriate, and for smaller edge workloads, edge facilities of up to 150kW critical power support services, applications and network extension closer to the network edge; so, uniquely in Africa, we are doing all of this.”

OADC’s newly appointed CEO, Ayotunde Coker, shares his vision for Africa’s future and the role OADC will play in the country’s transformation

Coker was appointed to guide and lead the OADC initiatives that will play a major role in accelerating Africa’s digital transformation, through construction and operation of a pan-African network of Tier-III certified data centre facilities. The organisation is rolling out its unique core-toedge open-access data centre ecosystem, comprising a combination of hyperscale, regional and edge data centres.

Upon his appointment, Coker said: “I am delighted to be leading OADC in transforming Africa’s digital capabilities, developing vibrant interconnected ecosystems based on deployment of worldclass, open-access digital infrastructure at strategic interconnection points throughout the continent. An opportunity for Africa to leapfrog the world.”

Now, the innovative CEO is firmly engaged in delivering OADC’s plans for Africa’s transformation and is excited by the opportunity presented to him at OADC, as he notes: “The key thing with WIOCC being the leading player in the deployment of carrier-scale, future-proofed open network infrastructure into Africa is that it opens up options for interconnectivity between data centres and right through to the point of use. There is great synergy there. Looking towards the future, WIOCC and OADC have been chosen to land the new >100Tbps Equiano and 2Africa undersea cables at different points in Africa. I think that's a really great achievement, and an excellent anchor point in terms of building out Open Access Data Centres.”

OADC: setting new standards of excellence in Africa

With 35 years of international experience across Europe, the USA, Asia and Africa, Coker knows the importance of giving customers best-in-class services: “Quality is very important in what we do. With many, many years in the industry – particularly in Africa – it has become clear to me that we have to build with quality moving forward. It is so important that the quality is there from the beginning.”

“We will set new standards for excellence in client delivery and service, whilst also setting new standards for the interconnection of digital ecosystems to ensure quality across the continent. In this it is vital to have the support of a great team. I am delighted with the team we have in place, and I will continue to bring in talent in key areas to ensure we are able to deliver on this promise. We will continue to invest in sustainable engineering, sales and marketing, and to move quickly to address new client requirements. We know exactly

Dr Ayotunde Coker

INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES

LOCATION: NIGERIA

Dr Ayotunde Coker is one of the leading players in the development of the data centre industry in Africa and is Chairperson of influential industry group, the Africa Data Centres Association.

Before joining OADC as Chief Executive Officer, Dr Coker led Rack Centre to becoming a household name in Nigeria and a leading brand in Africa, with global recognition and numerous prestigious international awards.

Throughout a distinguished international career as a technology and

business leader, Dr Coker has held senior positions in finance, energy, management consulting and UK Government. He holds an MSc from Cranfield Institute of Technology and a PhD (Honoris Causa) from ESCAE University. His achievements have been recognised by numerous awards, including the Distinguished Manufacturing Alumni Award (Cranfield Institute of Technology) 2020, and in the same year, he was recognised as one of the Global Top 30 Edge Computing Leaders by Data Economy Magazine.

TITLE: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

“It has become clear to me that we have to build things with quality moving forward. It is so important for the quality to be there from the beginning”

DR AYOTUNDE COKER CEO, OPEN ACCESS DATA CENTRES

what we need to do to put the right scale of facility into the right locations. And we can bring it all together for clients in a very flexible way through the unique core-toedge architecture we're putting in place, that includes open interconnection across the continent,” adds Coker.

Technology is crucial to the success of OADC as it looks to transform Africa’s digital ecosystems. Its OADC Durban facility and 23 edge data centres are already operational, with new core sites coming online shortly in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Lagos, Nigeria.

“We're going to see the Internet of Things (IoT) becoming much more important, especially to organisations operating at the edge. Businesses need to have much more creativity in doing things efficiently, and that's where IoT can help. As well as supporting this, we also anticipate implementing artificial intelligence in optimising what we do and how we do it,” says Coker.

MISSION STATEMENT

OADC has said that it plans facilities in up to 20 countries across Africa, including: Accra, Ghana; Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Cape Town & Johannesburg, South Africa; Kinshasa, DRC; Lagos, Nigeria; and Mombasa & Nairobi, Kenya.

“But, to implement this technology properly, we need to start with the intent, create the context, set the outcomes, and only then we will be able to maximise operational efficiency. Innovation in operating models is a subject at the forefront of my thoughts, especially considering the environment that we're working with. Simply accepting and maintaining the status quo is not always good enough.”

To bolster its technological capabilities and accelerate its journey to a connected Africa, OADC relies on its partners for support. Coker is firmly invested in harnessing enduring partnerships: “As we are building ecosystems

DR AYOTUNDE COKER CEO, OPEN ACCESS DATA CENTRES

“We're going to see the Internet of things (IoT) becoming much more important, especially for those operating at the edge”

Ayotunde Coker, CEO, OADC

DR AYOTUNDE COKER CEO, OPEN ACCESS DATA CENTRES

right across Africa, we work with a variety of organisations – be they technology partners, interconnect partners, carrier partners and so on. It's going to be a really exciting combining a whole range of partnerships in different parts of the delivery value chain.”

As an example, the company has partnered with Saradan for its expertise across the entire data centre ecosystem: “They bring excellent experience on the engineering front - they've been there, done it before, and they really bring valuable insight into what needs to be done. That 'right first time' quality really has been my experience of working with them.”

Key to successful partnerships is excellence. “Excellence is something we encourage and will continuously strive for within OADC”- and Coker expects this from

“The quality of client interaction has to be such that every touchpoint is an outstanding experience”

those he partners with, too: “We have the same expectations for them as we do of ourselves. Cultural alignment helps, but a collective ability and desire to learn from each other is also helpful. I also think open graciousness is key; something I really do believe in.”

Sustainably connecting Africa

MISSION STATEMENT

OADC plans to open its second core data centre in Nigeria later this year. On a four-hectare site in Lekki, Lagos – the largest data centre campus in West Africa - the US$100mn, Tier III-quality facility will have up to 20MW of capacity and 7,200 sqm (77,500 sq ft) of white space, with further expansion potential subject to demand. The Equiano subsea cable lands directly into this data centre.

The culture of excellence Coker is cultivating within OADC is designed to ensure that it delivers a truly innovative and client-centric data centre experience; one that puts its clients at the centre of Africa’s digital transformation.

“The quality of client interaction has to be such that every touchpoint is an outstanding experience, something we work at continuously and embody in our culture. Our client comes first; working with us has to be a totally different experience compared to any other operator, so those are the expectations I put in place here at OADC. We have to underpin the delivery of this expectation through the people we employ, ensuring that every single person in this organisation has the ability and desire to delight each client, and they have to be fully engaged in that process.

“Sustainability also gives us the opportunity to continuously innovate”

Our passion is not for the short-term sale, but for the long-term relationships forged through outstanding client experience” explains Coker.

Coker does, however, recognise that there will always be scope for improvement and that mistakes may be made for OADC to improve in supporting to the best of its ability Africa’s transformation: “It's a constant learning experience. When it doesn't go right the first time, we also have to be good at fixing issues very, very quickly. Sometimes, when things don't go right, the speed and quality of your response can result in an outstanding client experience. It’s important to learn and build a virtuous cycle of that learning. In fact, the next innovation might come out of lessons

learned from what didn't go right the first time. We must also understand that was acceptable yesterday is no longer good enough today. A spirit of learning and striving for relentless continuous improvement is how we will achieve the bar of excellence we are setting for ourselves.”

At the heart of OADC’s ambition is the organisation's sustainability ambitions. With many organisations across the world planning to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the data centre industry must increasingly design facilities that conserve energy, are energy efficient and use renewable energy sources.

“There are some things all companies can do to become more sustainable – take online meetings, for example, which can drastically reduce carbon emissions otherwise generated by travel - but that’s not enough by itself; we have to go beyond that.”

“We are recruiting a Head of Environment, Sustainability & Governance (ESG) to be primarily responsible for ESG and the sustainability agenda at OADC,” adds the CEO. “This will give us focus at the senior level, as well as providing us with a focal point for our engineering, innovation and processes in terms of sustainability. We plan to fully embed the resulting principles in our culture to ensure that what we do is inherently sustainable.”

He concludes: “Sustainability also gives us the opportunity to continuously innovate. A lot of what we will do, and the technology we use to implement our sustainability agenda, has yet to be invented or put into full production, particularly in the environment in which we operate. Our key opportunity is to optimise everything we do for the benefit of our clients and the environment in which we operate; it's an exciting time for OADC.”