< PreviousKeeping your data safe is more important than ever before. Here’s why. By: Laurent Sirgy, regional director for France, Southern Europe, the Middle East & Africa at Kingston Technology The growing cybersecurity con- cerns around sensitive enterprise information and the increase in data security regulations are forcing businesses to rethink the way they currently deal with data security and the measures they need to implement when dealing with it. This, together with recent data breaches that big corporations have suffered, have urged Middle East busi- nesses to consider data protection as an important part of their dynamics. Data security in the Middle East is increasingly important due to two main factors. First, the generation of data from technology evolution is rising at a fast pace and as a result, sensitive data needs to be safeguarded from cyberattacks and hacking attempts, which have also experienced a huge increase. Second, the implementa- tion of the GDPR in the EU has prompted a change in the way Middle East enterprises deal with EU-based companies regarding data protection. The Saudi Arabian Mon- find out about and ensure they are staying on the right side of compliance. Businesses are currently adopting alter- native solutions towards data protection, substituting software encryption for a more reliable and cheaper way of securing their information assets, such as using encrypted drives. A USB drive with hardware-based encryption is an excellent, non-compli- cated, cost effective solution to protect data from breaches, while also providing compliance with evolving governmental regulations. However, planning and education are the key. Even if businesses are adopting encrypted USB Flash drives, there is a need to have a plan in place and a strong policy to determine the security standards, based on the organisation’s needs. Employees should also be trained on the risks of using unen- crypted drives and the actual incidents that may occur due to accidental carelessness. While technology has made it easier for the mobile worker and the flexibility to work from home is of paramount importance, this can bring on a whole host of issues when it comes to keeping company information safe.” Laurent Sirgy WHY DATA ENCRYPTION MEANS A MORE SECURE FUTURE Keeping your data safe from hackers is more important than ever, says Kingston Technology's Laurent Sirgy. etary Authority (SAMA) is also playing a fundamental role in terms of data security at a governmental level, as consumer pro- tection is at the core of its actions. There is a growing trend for organisa- tions to allow employees to work from home or employ BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). While technology has made it easier for the mobile worker and the flex- ibility to work from home is of paramount importance, this can bring on a whole host of issues when it comes to keeping company information safe. Luckily, there are solutions that allow employees to keep workplace data secure and confidential. A large percentage of enterprises in the Middle East block the usage of USBs and other portable devices in order to protect and secure confidential data, only allowing exceptions on portable accessibility to IT managers or CEOs, as per business require- ments. This creates more issues though, as employees find work arounds to the prob- lem which are harder for the company to 30CommsMEA May 2019www.commsmea.com COMMENT KINGSTON TECHNOLOGYAn ITP Media Group Publication www.commsmea.com Critical analysis for telecommunications executives MAY 2019 Download the free CommsMEA app and be the fi rst to read the latest issue on your mobile devices. SPECIAL REPORTFor nominations and more information visit: WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM/AWARDS WEDNESDAY 26TH JUNE 2019 Dubai, UAE #NMEmagAwards The Network Middle East Innovation Awards celebrate the achievements of networking professionals, service providers and vendors that have worked on the most challenging of projects and implementations in the last 12 months. JOSEPHINE DSA GROUP SALES MANAGER Tel: +971 4 444 3630 GSM: +971 50 628 8952 Email: josephine.dsa@itp.com For sponsorship enquiries : DAVID NDICHU EDITOR, NETWORK MIDDLE EAST Tel: +971 4 444 3635 Email: david.ndichu@itp.com For nomination enquiries : BRIAN MCNAMARA MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER Tel: +971 4 444 3846 Email: brian.mcnamara@itp.com For other enquiries : PLEASE CONTACT MEDIA PARTNERS:SPONSOR:Most editor’s letters for special features in magazines about artificial intelligence have a certain element of cliché about them. It’s all so terribly staid, like someone who eats at the exact same restaurant and orders the exact same meal every Thurs- day. Dull. Let’s talk about music instead. Instead of the usual CommsMEA Café analogy that’s been used for the last few of these let- ters, let’s pretend we’re in a club. It’s dark, smoky, lasers are cutting through the air overhead into all the colours of the rainbow and in all manner of fantastical shapes, the sunrise is sparkling off the Spree through the windows to the left – at least, that’s the usual scene at Watergate in Berlin. It just so happens to be both a real place and this writer’s favourite nightspot on earth, but for another reason entirely: it’s where they play my absolute favourite music. My musical tastes are rather… specialised. I adore techno. But the We all know what AI is. But what are we really using it for – and what can we use it for in the future? What should we use it for? Thank the (AI) DJ EDITOR’S LETTER The Internet itself has also evolved into something far, far beyond what it was originally envisioned as being for. So why can’t AI?” Ben Mack is editor of CommsMEA thing is, outside of only a few very specific clubs, it’s hard for me to listen to the music I like – even online. It’s an issue. Or at least, it used to be. Thanks to AI and machine learning, there’s a subscrip- tion-based web service I can use to recreate that club experience. The way it works is this: you enter in what songs/artists/genres you like, and the database plays a song. You can give it a “thumbs up” to indicate you like it, or a “thumbs down” that you don’t. The system then picks the next song based on your previous response. The more you use the service, the better tailored to your preferences the playlist will become. That’s just one use of machine learning and AI – a use it’s rather doubtful anyone was thinking of when they dreamt up the idea. Then again, the Internet itself has also evolved into something far, far beyond what it was originally envisioned as being for. So why can’t AI? Without further ado, let’s get into it. And this isn’t even a conversation we have to have post-clubbing at Watergate, grab- bing a mid-morning, piping hot curry- wurst or döner kebab for a couple of euros outside Schlesisches Tor U-Bahn station amid chattering teeth and shaky knees in the chilly air, before catching the U3 back home to Kurfürstenstraße, eyes squint- ing from the glare of the bright sun and so exhausted an actual space alien could ma- terialise in front of you and you wouldn’t bat an eyelash, telling them that before they take you away you need to lie down for a few hours to get some sleep first. DOWNLOAD OR UPDATE THE APP NOW ON YOUR IOS DEVICE 33CommsMEA May 2019www.commsmea.com SPECIAL REPORT AIEvery day brings something new and exciting when it comes to AI. Here’s a brief look at a few of the more interesting recent developments. INDUSTRY UPDATE CITY BRAIN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THAT CAN KNOW WHEN YOU’RE POSSIBLY ABOUT TO QUIT YOUR JOB The Chinese city of Hangzhou, home to tech giant Alibaba, used to have some of the worst traffic congestion in the world. Key phrase: used to. Thanks to AI, those struggles are as much a relic of the past as life before the Internet itself. Or, more specifically, thanks to a “brain” developed by Alibaba. The so-called City Brain gathers data from throughout the city – such as video from traffic cams and GPS information from cars, trucks and buses – and in real- time is able to coordinate and control more than 1,000 traffic signals, easing gridlock and improving traffic flow. They say we can never know what goes on in another person’s mind, right? Guess what: AI might very well be proving that wrong. Seriously. According to IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, the company’s AI tech is “now 95%” accurate in predicting workers who are planning to leave their jobs. Speaking at CNBC’s @ Work Talent + HR Summit in New York City in April, Rometty said IBM has a patent for its “predictive attrition program,” which was developed with the help of the supercomputer Watson to predict the likelihood employees might leave their job. More impressive still, the program can even “prescribe actions for managers to engage employees.” Rometty says the program has saved IBM more than US$300 million in expenses about quitting your job – lest an AI program warn your bosses of what you’re about to do. AI can predict when workers might quit their jobs. so far, too – and that it’s being offered to external clients. Perhaps you better not think twice The proof is in the proverbial pudding, too: according to Alibaba, City brain has helped halve the time it takes emergency responders to reach the scene of emergencies – saving people’s lives in the process. Now other cities are rolling out their own version of City Brain. Kuala Lumpur has already done so, using the same Alibaba technology as Hangzhou. Over in the heart of Europe in Germany, Volkswagen and Siemens have been testing their own system in the northern city of Wolfsburg. So, could AI one day manage traffic in Middle East and African cities? Cliché as it sounds, only time will tell. AI can help reduce or even end gridlock. SPECIAL REPORT AI 34CommsMEA May 2019www.commsmea.comCHEF WATSONSAYING KIA ORA TO KIRI For about 99.99% of New Zealanders, the idea of defiling the beloved dessert known as pavlova – essentially a meringue cake with a crisp crust and soft, light inside topped with fruit and whipped cream – with cheese is about as outrageous as the All Blacks not winning the Rugby World Cup. More outrageous still: if that “cheddarlova” is designed by artificial intelligence. Yet IBM’s Watson supercomputer (famously known for consistently beating human players in the television game show “Jeopardy!”) helped create just that back in 2017. To celebrate the opening of its new offices in Auckland, IBM had Watson team up with New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra and top local chefs to create food to serve to visitors. As IBM New Zealand analytics and cognitive principal Isuru Fernando told New Zealand creative business magazine Idealog at the time, before coming up with the “cheddarlova” recipe, Watson was fed more than 10,000 recipes from US magazine Bon Appétit, as well as digital data about the culture of the local area. As Fernando said at the time: “It’s a true collaboration between man and machine. Working outside the confines of human taste and experience, the AI creates recipes that challenge our typical ideas of what will taste good.” And taste good it did. Bizarre as the idea of having sharp cheddar cheese, chilled heavy cream, shredded coconut, peeled mango, chili powder, bay leaves and more on top of a cake may sound, attendees and local media described it as “a river of savoury gooiness.” Down in New Zealand, Vodafone has unveiled its new “digital human,” Kiri. Unsurprisingly, Kiri knows a thing or two about tech. After all, she lives and breathes it as a digital assistant for Vodafone, helping customers with any questions they might have. Vodafone announced in September 2018 that it would be the world’s first telco with a digital human, announcing that the then-unnamed digital denizen – created with the help of New Zealand company FaceMe – would enable customers to benefit from self-service options and free up time for staff to address more complex customer needs. Later in the year, Kiri made her debut in physical stores in New Zealand thanks to special kiosks. Kiri’s strikingly life-like appearance relies on real time rendering and artificial intelligence, using FaceMe’s latest techniques in machine learning-based animation. Skin textures, such as pores and lines, are carefully sculpted, and light reflection and even roughness have been detailed by FaceMe’s artists. Simply put, the results are so lifelike, interacting with Kiri is almost as if one is interacting with a “real” human via Skype or video calling. Explains Vodafone customer operations director Helen van Orton of the customer-led process of bringing Kiri to life: “Customers tell us they want the experience of engaging with a digital assistant to be seamless, emotive and engaging – characteristics that are critical for creating trust. Customers want to feel valued and that their needs are taken care of.” 'Cheddarlova' created by IBM's Watson. She says more. “Kiri will help out with routine tasks so that our retail staff can help solve more challenging issues for clients. The technology also has the potential to create whole new job categories where frontline employees monitor conversations to continuously improve them, creating brand new professions in our evolving digital world.” Studies have shown natural, engaging interaction requires a less than 200 millisecond response time. Kiri’s processing has been optimised for speed and accuracy to create an experience that feels instantaneous. Computer vision technology allows Kiri to “see” and behave just like humans. For example, using her situational awareness system, Kiri can naturally respond when people walk up to her, and greet them proactively. FaceMe CEO Danny Tomsett believes emotional connection is key for interaction. “FaceMe has analysed what creates great experiences and which human qualities we need to reproduce – and supercharge – using AI technology. Through advanced Digital Human EQ combined with the IBM Watson conversational platform, we have created a great customer experience that leaves people feeling deeply content and satisfied with each conversation.” When asked to comment, Kiri said that she’s looking forward to helping people. “I’m really excited about my new role at Vodafone and to talk to our customers. I’m still learning, but in the future I want to answer those complicated technical questions. I can’t wait to meet everyone!” Vodafone's AI assistant, Kiri. Some AI avatars created by FaceMe. SPECIAL REPORT AI 35CommsMEA May 2019www.commsmea.comChris Pope discusses how AI is really about humans - not machines. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all about machines, obviously. Except it’s not. In truth, discus- sions surrounding AI may often centre around how competent, intuitive and contextually aware the machine brains we are building have become. But really, AI is all about us - and how it can make our lives better. There was a time when AI tools and func- tions were still associated with the fanciful ‘talking computers’ that featured in many 1980s movies. It wasn’t that long ago that we considered AI as something of a ‘toy’ and its application in mission-critical enterprise applications was still somewhat laughable. So much so that we’re equally focused on the proficiency of computer speech recognition. Application of AI But as far as we have come, we still need to look at the real world use cases of AI and ask how it can help us make our lives better. If we’re not applying AI to our human work experiences to examine and analyse where it can make those experiences greater, then what are we doing here in the first place? The truth is, many enterprises large and small have been struggling with finding the appropriate use cases for new and emerging AI technologies. Companies need to find the workflows inside their business models that can benefit from AI. Only then can they start to architect towards turning those operation- al throughputs into truly digital workflows. Practical examples Think about a typical office. When people leave the company, we need to manage who has a key fob for access to the car park. This is a perfect example of the type of job that has typically been performed manually through the use of a spreadsheet. This is time con- suming, error-prone and obviously creates TAKING A MORE HUMAN APPROACH TO AI security issues. But it’s also a perfect example of the type of task we can evolve to become a digital work- flow driven by intelligence stemming from AI. Our analytics engine should know that an employee is leaving the firm and so reports, alerts, emails and perhaps even mobile device management, to cancel the key fob, can all happen automatically. If we can make all those things smarter, then we can build better experiences faster. Automating a bad process doesn’t make it good In the technology industry, we are often bad when it comes to decommissioning things. Think about how many business processes probably exist today that firms need to eradi- cate and get rid of. There’s no point in applying AI to these aspects of the business. The human factor baseline We as humans now need to engineer the existence of AI into our own mindsets and consider how it can help us work differently. This includes knowing what things we don’t need to worry about anymore. For example, we don’t take a map out with us these days, because we use a smartphone—so what else can we stop doing? As we move down the more humanised road to AI, we will find that AI itself gets smarter. We must be able to apply an element of human judgement. The future of AI is smarter, and it is also more human. Sophia the robot interacting with visitors at GITEX 2018 in Dubai. As we move down the more humanised road to AI, we will find that AI itself gets smarter as it learns our behavioural patterns, penchants and preferences.” Chris Pope, vice president of innovation at ServiceNow 36CommsMEA May 2019www.commsmea.com SPECIAL REPORT AISheikh Sadiq of ALT Technology comments on how 5G and AI will forever impact the way we work. The way we work has evolved sig- nificantly with the dominance of automation. The rollout of 5G and the ensuing adoption will further impact the way we work. And connecting us to these multi- ple processes is Wi-Fi. A recent study indicated hotel guests' preference for free Wi-Fi compared to free breakfast is a point to note. Safe, secure and reliable Wi-Fi connectivity is critical to individuals and businesses all over. That’s more so a reason why a seamless Wi-Fi network is so important. Wi-Fi tech- nology in itself has evolved from autono- mous access points to controller-based architecture. Gone are the days when a typical network would only handle several hundred devices and endpoints. Today there are several hundred thousand con- nected devices and innumerable endpoints that are being managed. During instances of downtime, IT man- agers have been struggling of late to sort the massive data source emanating from the wireless network, identify its root cause and fix it in time. Manual classification of received messages and their analysis have become more untenable. That’s where machine learning and artificial intelligence is beginning to play an increasing role. Troubleshooting is moving beyond humans and into the domain of machines. In what can be termed as a loop, a seamless Wi-Fi system has enabled the evolution of AI, and that in turn is now playing a large role in enabling a trouble-free, self-healing Wi-Fi network. AI is already turning out to be a game- changer across various sectors. Almost all new products, software and services will be AI-driven – and Wi-Fi technology is no exception. We are already seeing the evolution of a new system that can simplify operations, understand and learn from user experience and identify and fix errors. However, how exactly are AI-based solutions playing a role? The emergence of Almost all new products, software and services will be AI-driven – and Wi-Fi technology is no exception.” Sheikh Sadiq, ALT Technology HOW AI IS TRANSFORMING WI-FI broadband and fibre optics have enabled the transfer of data at speeds of about 100 GB, allowing cloud-based computing to process data at speeds that cannot be matched by human elements. This enables the AI system to process and analyse data related to failed attempts, access point uptime, user experience, etc. New systems being developed measure the user experience and correlate this with data extracted from the network. What’s more, AI and machine learning are enabling the development of new systems based on its analysis. The result has been the advent of vari- ous software-defined networks (SDN) to systems that can manage and self-correct. These solutions do not wait for the errors to occur and for the user to report back complaints. Instead, it constantly analyses available data, flags off areas of concern and gives actionable recommendation on how to fix the problem. Each of these devices is capable of extracting data from behavioural patterns and auto-adjust to boost perfor- mance. The AI system learns from past errors and enables rectification methods. It should be noted that at present we are not talking about completely replacing human intelligence. AI can today guide us towards the right solutions. We still require human intervention. However, we are also moving towards developing a self-managing system that can work without human intervention. The result has been massive savings for the industry in terms of cost and time. It frees up IT managers from processing hundreds of thousands of logs in an effort to identify the problem. We are expecting AI-enabled Wi-Fi solutions to gain widespread deployment within the next year. The fast adoption of the latest technology and the widespread installation of 5G technology across the UAE makes it one of the fastest adopters of machines that analyse, self-learn and act on their own. IT managers across the region are also more trained towards adopting new innovations, and dealing with its implementation. We are witnessing an exciting period of transformation, and there is no better place to be than here. AI is transforming the fundamental way we work, says Sheikh Sadiq. 37CommsMEA May 2019www.commsmea.com SPECIAL REPORT AIwww.commsmea.com SPECIAL REPORT AI 38CommsMEA May 2019 AI has been a reality for a while now. While a future as envisioned by science fiction is still possible, what’s perhaps more exciting are the ways in which telcos are harnessing AI to improve the present. by Ben Mack THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF AI IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICAwww.commsmea.com SPECIAL REPORT AI 39CommsMEA May 2019Next >