Blogging from the scene, the live event at Four Seasons hotel in Doha, Qatar organized by the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) and The Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. This event is featuring Michael Nelson – Georgetown University about The future of the internet.
The speaker presented couple of interesting thoughts for audience to think about:
People
People are the most important part of the technology, in bringing it, using it, and growing it. The essential part is to make sure you empower the user.
Vision
While we are entering the 3rd phase of computing since the profound of the internet; we are still yet defining it which we may either narrow or widen the landscape of technology and shape its future.
Cloud:
The speaker quoted Rich Karigaard of Forbes, internet is cheap revolution. It’s like renting the power you needs: space, expand, and speed. CIO should not think about CIO as abbreviation of Career Is Over by avoiding to shift to cloud computer technology. Cloud is the 3rd phase of computing after communications phase and content phase.
Things:
Devices estimated to grow by 50% for multi- and different- purposes like monitoring, environment problems, sensors, etc… Now, camera can be plugged into the cloud and you can share information. It’s estimated also that more data will be available on the internet in the next 5 years by 10 folds. This huge data sizes is coming from teleconferencing, crowdsourcing, and new applications.
Collaboration:
Social media like facebook and twitter (as an example but not exclusive) are big part of collaboration on the internet; social media methods allow you to connect with people and replace common communication methods like emails. Social Media can’t be ignored while there are successful case studies like Obama’s success, Iran’s Election mobilization, etc..
There are two models of management of collaboration:
1. Blocking like 1960 US Army whereby information comes form bottom to the top about what’s happening on the ground.
2. Free Flow like Obama Online Operation in his presidency campaign whereby information are flowing between different levels and among same levels that allow easy optimization and anyone could be heard on his ideas or optimization plans.
Policy:
Governments are always 15-20 years behind from latest technology. Governments needs to change and become early adopters of new technologies. Every government needs to fix procurement , move to open standard, and more importantly to start by itself.
To link it with “Cloud Computing” governments should update their policies on: transparency, privacy, liability for cloud service providers, international data flows, and competition policy.
End of the session.
This article was only a summary of important quotes and will be optimized by tomorrow.
I totally agree with you Sherif, I felt his objective was to nurture IT managers and specialists on the bright side and future of the technology – cloud computing in specific, and keeping himself apart from debatable discussions. Therefore, it was part of a session to influence on changing mindset towards cloud computing as a wave to surf on or else you will lose it, regardless of the concerns.
The lecture was pretty useful, but it didn't mention the ugly side of the cloud which was, IMHO, important to give the big picture.