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magazine
11
agenda
Are machines taking over?
Find out more about the growing interaction
between humans and technology and the
implications of artificial intelligence at the
annual Cambridge Science Festival, running
from March 7-20.
sciencefestival.cam.ac.uk
Buried info costs
businesses £20m in
missed opportunities
European organisations are storing more
data but, because they don’t have the
systems and processes required to access
it, are missing out on opportunities worth
millions, warns flash storage provider Pure
Storage.
Its new report,
European Big Data –
Big Failure
, states that 51% of European
businesses have missed opportunities they
didn’t see coming because they lacked
accurate information; 78% say they could
boost their performance by at least 21% by
accessing insights faster.
Almost three-quarters (72%) admit that
they collect data but never use it. Half (48%)
say this is because data processing is too time-
consuming, and one in five (19%) because it is
too expensive to process.
James Petter, VP EMEA of Pure Storage,
said: “The reason we’re
seeing these trends emerge
is because it is now cheaper
for businesses to retain the
data they are collecting, than
to destroy it – so the volume
of data a business holds is
growing rapidly. But at the
same time, it is complicated and costly to
access usable information fast enough to make
a difference.”
With 56% of companies surveyed
identifying bureaucratic red tape as the most
serious obstacle to business productivity,
Petter is calling on businesses to free up
access to data.
He said: “Bureaucratic red tape around
access to information is preventing companies
from using their data to find those unique
pieces of insight that lead to great ideas.
Data ownership is no longer just the remit
of the CIO; the democratisation of insight
across businesses enables them to disrupt the
competition.”
Panasonic becomes
official ceremony
partner
Panasonic has signed an agreement to become
an ‘Official Ceremony Partner’ at the Rio
2016 Olympic and Paralympic games. In this
capacity, it will provide audio-visual equipment
for use inside the Maracana Stadium including
more than 100 high brightness compact
20,000 lumens projectors.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which
includes developments in previously
disjointed fields, such as artificial
intelligence and machine-learning, robotics,
nanotechnology, 3-D printing, genetics
and biotechnology, is predicted to cause
widespread disruption to labour markets in
the next five years, significantly changing
the skill sets needed by workers.
The Future of Jobs
, a new report published
by theWorld Economic Forum, warns that as
many as 7.1 million jobs could be lost through
redundancy, automation or dis-intermediation,
with the greatest losses in white-collar office
and administrative roles.
In a separate study commissioned by
Infosys,
Amplifying Human Potential: Education
and Skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
,
40% of 16-25 year olds said their current job
could be done by a computer, robot or artificial
intelligence in 10 years time.
Young people in all surveyed countries
acknowledge that they will need to improve
their technical skills. However, those in
emerging markets seem more eager to gain the
skills required. For example, in India, Brazil and
China over three-quarters of young people are
interested in learning to build a mobile app,
compared to 65% in the US and UK and just
half in Germany.
•
Investment in skills key to
managing job market disruptions
Robot companion Pepper will be greeting guests
and appearing on stage at the inaugural Millennial
20/20 Business Summit, taking place in London
on April 13-14. Millennial 20/20 provides a
platform where business people can learn about
the latest strategies, products and services to
help engage and do business with the millennial
generation. Pepper is the first humanoid robot
capable of recognising human emotions and
adapting its behaviour accordingly.
