We recently interviewed Nicole Nguyen, Head of APAC, Infinity Blockchain Ventures, who spearheads Infinity Blockchain Lab’s regional initiative in connecting major players and fostering an ever-growing blockchain ecosystem in Asia. She is a co-author of the first Vietnam Blockchain Landscape Report and speaker at various international and local blockchain conferences such as TEDx, Shanghai Blockchain Week, World Bank blockchain workshop series, Seamless Asia and ConnecTech Asia.
Nicole Nguyen will be speaking on the panel ‘Fireside Chat: 10 Key Challenges to Blockchain Adoption’ at ConnecTechAsia Summit on Day 2, 27 June 2018. She shared her views on the new trends, challenges and myth about blockchain technology today.
Read the complete interview below:
1. Can you give us a brief introduction about what this technology is and what is the principle on which blockchain technology is based on?
Blockchain, at the end of the day, is a database. Yet what brings magic to blockchain is the underlying cryptography, consensus algorithms, decentralized database and network. Technically blockchain is not something new – its inception dates back to the 90s yet as a trust-centered technology, blockchain is drastically transforming the way we exchange data and value. By changing the fundamentals of a society – trust and value, blockchain is deemed as a game-changer to the global innovation landscape.
2. Are there different types of Blockchains? What are they?
By definition there are various types of blockchain. To my understanding, basically there are permissioned, permissionless and hybrid blockchains. In permissioned blockchain, the system owner can designate transaction validators and have the authority to remove or alter the data; also the data is only accessible to pre-selected audience. However this is not possible in a permissionless blockchain – arguably claimed as the most democratic blockchain. Hybrid blockchain allows a mixed model where pre-selected nodes or players can validate/approve the data and the public is allowed to see the data yet have no authority to rewrite the data.
Subject to different business requirements in terms of system robustness, privacy, throughput etc, you can consider the most relevant blockchain and most importantly how blockchain could fill the unmet demand in the market like no other technologies can.
3. How will blockchain reshape the future, maybe in next five years? Who are going to be the biggest beneficiaries of blockchain technology and why?
The blockchain is transforming the way people exchange information and value like never before. This is seriously disrupting value and growth drivers of the society and ushering new business models and opportunities. At the end of the day, end users will be the biggest beneficiaries of blockchain in my opinion, yet startups and disruption incumbents such as mainstream players and businesses can find their own way of leveraging blockchain technology to bring about higher efficiency, productivity and sustainable growth to the business.
4. What are the key challenges that the technology needs to overcome today before mainstream adoption?
The blockchain is still at its infancy in terms of awareness and development and challenges still amass such as scalability, lack of regulation, on-boarding process etc. I personally feel there is a shortage of good blockchain products at infrastructure level (payment, exchange, identity etc.) with easy on boarding process and user-friendly interface. Simply as it might sound, I think this is one of the key challenges to blockchain adoption.
5. There is a lot of myths about blockchain right now. Can you name a few and debunk them?
Myths include the following – Blockchain is cryptocurrency. Blockchain brings money from the sky. The blockchain is the trend – you should apply it at all costs. There are plenty of them.
I think my key takeaway is behind the hype and flashy covers, blockchain is all about being relevant when it comes to application in businesses. Once you want to apply blockchain please make sure you have a sharp problem statement and blockchain is the only technology that can fill the missing piece.
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SQL Server and SQL databases are here for quite a while, and there are many techniques and strategies available for the administrators to perform better in it. Many DBAs will not be aware of some of the top tips which will help you mainly in a production environment. Here, we will discuss some random tips which some of you may find informative and helpful in the job of an SQL Server production DBA.
#1. Forfiles utility to get rid of old backup files
Forfiles (forfiles.exe) utility comes pre-installed with Windows Server 2003. IT enables the administrators to perform batch file processing. So, DBAs can use this service in conjunction with the SQL Server Agent, which help delete the old database backups, which will eradicate dependencies on SQL Server maintenance, xp_cmdshell extended stored procedures or the VBScript objects.
#2. Using ‘ALTER USER’ to repair orphaned logins
From SQL Server 2005 SP2, the ALTER USER command of T-SQL’s is having a WITH LOGIN clause too. Choosing this can repair the orphaned logins by changing the user’s SID to security identifier of server login. It can improve not only SQL Server but Windows logins too. Orphaned users get created when a database gets restored from a different server, and that login is independently produced.
#3. Use the ‘sp_addsrvrolemember’ to take up sysadmin role
From SQL Server 2008, sysadmin role is not given to Windows Administrators by default. To cover this, you can initiate SQL Server instance in the single-user mode or maintenance mode and then run ‘sp_addsrvrolemember’ in the Sqlcmd utility stored procedure to add your login to the sysadmin role.
#4. Using PortQryUI for troubleshooting connectivity issues
As suggested by RemoteDBA.com experts, you can use the Microsoft’s PortQryUI to troubleshoot the TCP/IP connectivity issues. PortQryUI is an alternative to PortQry but has a GUI with many predefined services. One of these predefined ports group is meant for SQL Server, consisting of a TCP port 1433 and UDP port 1434. To check the ports, you can just enter IP address or the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) or target SQL. It is easy to download PortQryUI utility at “PortQryUI.”
#5. Try and use a unique strategy while running the DBCC CHECKDB against bigger databases.
Databases tend to become larger day by, so the maintenance procedures like checking integrity with the DBCC CHECKDB command of T-SQL’s may take longer and longer. There are several potential solutions if the DBCC CHECKDB exceeds allocated maintenance period. One instant solution is to access backup to restore DB on a different server and then run the DBCC CHECKDB against the existing server. A second solution is to custom set database’s verify option to CHECKSUM and then run DBCC CHECKDB with PHYSICAL_ONLY option. This combination will make the DBCC CHECKDB run in lesser time, but will still catch the I/O subsystem.
You can also use the T-SQL’s Server 2008 Center Management servers and local server groups to query multiple servers simultaneously. In an SQL Server 2008, you can also use local server group to connect to the servers frequently accessed quickly.
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Artificial Intelligence is the latest buzzword in marketing and it’s hard to live a day without hearing it at least half a dozen times. But what really is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that theorizes and develops computer systems that can perform tasks that usually require human intelligence. These include but are not limited to speech recognition, visual perception and decision-making.
Research has shown that the possibilities for use and leveraging of AI are endless and it can serve a variety of functions in your business. As much of marketing is currently focused on digital, it is no wonder that AI has come to take a firm place in the field. As a result of this, AI can be used to improve your business or blog. Let’s take a look at some ways that AI has been used recently to increase traffic to a website or blog.
5 ways AI can be used to improve your business
Content Creation – Content marketing is currently one of the best strategies for many marketers and bloggers. AI allows you to access information on how persons consume and interact with the content on your website or blog. According to Jeff O’Brien, Head of Content Marketing at SolidEssay, it will help you to gather information and resources needed to create new content and identify trends that can help you make critical decisions for your blog.
Search Engine Optimization – In order for your website or blog to gain new visits, you have to be found. AI can be used, along with search engine optimization tools, to identify issues on your blog or website and suggest areas and ways for improving your search ranking.
Website creation – AI makes website creation easier and better by providing a fully optimized website or blog as the end result.
Real-time personalization – AI helps you to provide personalized messages, posts, recommendations, etc. for your blog or website, thus making your audience happy and more likely to continuously read your content.
Accessibility – AI can help to make your blog or website more accessible to persons who are visually-impaired or hearing-impaired. You can use AI-based tools to transcribe video, provide closed captioning or audio for your blog.
Your blog cannot survive without readers, so you have to employ several strategies to bring readers to your blog and to keep them coming back. Now that you know what AI is and a few ways it can be used for your blog or website, let’s look at some great AI tools you can use to grow your blog so you not only gain new readers but also keep the established ones coming back for more.
5 AI tools to grow your blog
Grammarly – Well-written blog posts grab their audience’s attention and make them crave more. In order to write a great blog post, you need a great writing tool. Grammarly is just that. It uses AI to identify grammar and spelling errors while also giving suggestions on how to improve the tone and style of your writing. No writer is complete without a tool like Grammarly.
Crayon – AI is used to track what the competitor is doing. It analyzes data from online sources, tracks the activity of your competitors’ websites and provides useful insight for your business. These can be used to help make meaningful business decisions about what to write, how to post and so much more. Be sure to try this tool for your own blog and see how much a difference it makes.
Uberflip – This is a great tool for analyzing your written content and cataloging it. It then uses this to recommend specific content to your audience based on posts they have read in the past. It is a great way to keep your readers engaged and coming back for more.
Pathmatics – Do you know how to find your audience online? Knowing this will better enable you to find and target them. If you don’t, try using Pathmatics. It uses AI to provide you with digital advertising information from brands, companies, etc. Use it to identify your competitors and keep track what they are doing, how they are spending their time, etc. It will also tell you how the audience is responding to the ads, thus enabling you to make informed decisions about your own advertising of your blog. Amanda Daniels, Chief Marketing Officer at ConfidentWriters, recommends using the information to identify companies or brands that you can align yourself with to get more readers to your blog or even guest blog on their platform. The possibilities for this are endless!
BrightEgde – This tool makes content production easier because it helps with tasks such as adding header tags, cross-linking and optimization. It tells you what types of content perform better and suggests ways to rank your written content so that your readers are continuously engaged. Measuring your ROI for your blogging has been made easy because of BrightEdge, so be sure to give it a try.
Blogging is a way to expand your knowledge and to grow, whether personally or professionally. Whether you do it as a hobby, side job or main job, your blog can only survive if it has readers and if it grows. The tools given are great, easy to use tools that will help you do just that. Be sure to give them a try.
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No doubt you’ve heard of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) act introduced by the European Union by now. Some companies – such as Facebook and Google – have already been accused of breathing the legislation; which protects EU citizens from having their personal data misused. It also gives them more control over their personal data. So, just what IS personal data?
How the GDPR Defines Personal Data
The GDPR defines personal data as information related to someone that can be used to identify them; directly or indirectly. The reality is that personal data can be just about anything. The main things that are considered to be personal data are:
Your Name and Picture
Your name is one of the most obvious pieces of personal data there is. Combine it with a photo of you and someone can identify you in seconds. Other people can share your name, which is why it might not be enough, but there’s no denying the combination of both a name and photo.
Email Address
Your email address is likely connected to your other data. There are websites that can tell you who owns a particular email address. It also allows people to contact you without your consent, something else the GDPR aims to crack down on.
Home Address
Most people think nothing of giving their home address away to services they use. That is, until they get junk mail and realize that people they don’t know have their address – and that they got it without their consent.
Bank Details
Would you want someone to know your bank details without your permission? Of course you wouldn’t. You might not even realize that your banking details may have been sold.
Medical Information
Medical information is a deeply personal and intimate piece of information. Your health is something that should be kept private and personal. It’s another piece of important personal information you might not realize has been given up without your consent.
IP Address
Your IP address is connected to your computer. It is something that can be used to identify your location, name, address, and possibly even your internet history. If you ever want to know what your IP address says about you, then just try using an IP lookup service yourself.
Biometric Data
Biometric data is things such as your finger print or retina. You might use biometric data to unlock your devices. Obviously your devices will store this information. Given that this information can be used by your device, it’s no surprise it can be used by people.
Racial and Ethnic Data
This is information about your race or ethnicity. Advertisers are known to target specific races and people from specific countries, and this information allows them to do that.
Political Opinions
Political opinions aren’t just something that can be used to identify you; they can be used to attack you and even discredit you. If you’re the kind of person that wants to keep your political opinions to yourself, you probably wouldn’t want strangers on the internet knowing them.
Sexual Orientation
Your sexual orientation is something else you may wish to keep private.
Summary
To put it simply, personal information really could be anything. If it’s something about you, anything at all, then it’s personal information and the GDPR is there to protect it.
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The Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) Market is set to grow from its current market value of more than $2.5 billion to over $25 billion by 2024, according to a latest study by Global Market Insights, Inc.
The study suggests that the need to provide an enhanced customer experience is the primary factor augmenting the growth of the AI in BFSI market.
As the competition among the market players is mounting day-by-day, companies have started to focus on providing a better experience to the customers to gain the customer loyalty. This encourages financial institutes to integrate advanced analytics tools and solutions to analyze customer data to fulfill their requirement, understand the customer experience, and to make smarter predictions about their behavior and requirements. Furthermore, companies are also looking forward to connecting with the customers on their choice of channels to provide a more seamless experience.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in BFSI Market
Furthermore, as digitalization is spreading across the globe, customers are becoming more empowered. They have access to a wide array of products offered by the traditional as well as dynamic new entrants. As the choices increase, the customer loyalty becomes more friable and the customer becomes more empowered. The organizations have no option but to remain agile and continuously innovate their business by adopting modern technologies to cater to the high expectations and standards for customers.
The customer behavior analytics solution market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 35% during the forecast timespan. The growing demand to analyze the structured and unstructured customer data among the financial institutes to provide a personalized experience to the customers is a major factor affecting the growth of the market. This solution can mine a vast volume of data to extract actionable insights and recommend appealing & personalized offers to the individual customers. Furthermore, the ability of the solution to transform the marketing activities and enhance the customer engagement also drives the demand.
The risk management, compliance, and security applications of the AI in BFSI market are anticipated to grow noticeably at a CAGR of about 40%. The market is driven by the improved demand for advanced machine learning algorithms in Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and fraud detection applications. Unlike the traditional security systems, the AI-powered system can actively learn and calibrate as per the new potential security threats. This solution can detect unique security issues & vulnerabilities and flag the security teams.
U.S. Artificial Intelligence in BFSI Market Share, By Solution, 2017 (USD Million)
The insurance market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 38% during 2018-2024. The growth of the market is credited with the adoption of advanced data models and analytics solution among the insurance companies to identify and quantify risks in a better manner. Furthermore, increasing collaboration & partnership activities between the insurers and fintech companies are also the major factors propelling the AI in BFSI market growth.
Europe held more than 20% share in AI in BFSI market. The investments by the tech giants in the region support the market growth. For instance, Amazon Web Services (AWS) invested approximately USD 2.3 million in Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, a Germany-based AI research center for the development of AI and robotics technology. Similarly, in 2016, Google announced the establishment of a new research and development facility in Zurich, Germany.
Asia Pacific AI in BFSI market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of over 40%. The growth is owing to the rising venture capital investments in AI and fintech. China is leading the investment landscape in the Asia Pacific with more than USD 8.0 investment in the fintech sector in 2016. Furthermore, the country also accounts for more than 11% share in the global AI investments in 2016. Similarly, India also accounts for significant investments in the AI and fintech sectors.
AI in BFSI market is highly competitive due to the presence of both multinational companies and start-ups. The players are constantly innovating and developing advanced products to cater to the growing customer demand. The prominent vendors of the AI solution in BFSI sector are Microsoft, Google, Intel, IBM, AWS, Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, Palantir, IPsoft, Inbenta, Lexalytics, Interaction, and Next IT. The multinational companies, such as AWS, Google, and Microsoft, account for the majority of the share in the market. However, some start-ups, such as Inbenta, Lexalytics, and Interactions, also play a vital role in the overall market.
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Podcasts are a great way to educate yourself about a certain topic or to keep up with the latest trends in a particular area. They’re gaining more and more relevance, as the number of podcast listeners is on the rise. Currently, around 50 million Americans listen to podcasts on a weekly basis. Among topics that are becoming increasingly interesting for both creators and fans are the latest data science and AI issues and developments. If you’re interested in getting involved in this industry or simply want to know what’s new in this area, here are a few podcasts that you might find useful.
Talking Machines
Talking Machines offers a little bit of something for everyone. Hosts Katherine Gorman and Ryan Adams have different backgrounds, the former coming from the world of radio production and the latter being a machine learning academic. Together with their guests who are experts in machine learning, they try to analyze some important concepts on a level comprehensible to most listeners, although they do sometimes tend to get a bit technical. An average episode lasts for around 60 minutes and listeners are welcome to give them a call and get involved in the conversation themselves.
Data Skeptic
Once a week, for more than 4 years, Kyle Polich, the host of Data Skeptic, deals with matters like natural language processing, data science or game theory. The episodes vary from hour-long discussions with industry experts to 10-15 minutes short overviews of topics and trends related to the mentioned subject matters. Some episodes demand a decent level of knowledge about these fields, but Kyle and his occasional co-host, Linh Da, do their best to make them more accessible, often by using amusing analogies with their parrot.
The O’Reilly Data Show
Big data is truly big and is not getting smaller as 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data is created every day. One of the best places to get informed on big data is the O’Reilly data show, hosted by Ben Lorica, Chief Data Scientist of the O’Reilly Media. Episodes are around half an hour long, with a schedule that tends to be somewhat inconsistent.
Lorica hosts some of the top authorities in the area of data science and usually keeps the discussion at a very high level. Therefore, having some knowledge of the subject matter is desirable if you want to be able to follow the conversation. It’s great for experts and those who work in the big data companies, as it can help them improve their understanding of the hottest data science issues.
Learning Machines 101
Some of the predictions concerning AI are not just shocking, but also worrying. For instance, according to some studies, almost 40 percent of jobs in America will be replaced by AI by 2030s. In addition, as soon as two years from now, we can expect 85 percent of customer interactions being managed without any human help.
These two predictions come from reliable sources, but there’s a lot of crazy theories about AI that need to be debunked. Learning Machines 101 is a podcast with a goal to demystify artificial intelligence and myths about it. They claim that they’re trying to introduce people to the world of AI in an amusing and entertaining manner, although they do get carried away now and then so discussions can become too technical at times. Therefore, some episodes require a bit of background knowledge about artificial intelligence.
Linear Digressions
As it was just mentioned, there’s a lot of ignorance surrounding the topics of AI, machine learning and data science. Luckily, there are all sorts of courses, shows and podcasts that are trying to reach people who are not exactly experts in the subject matter. And it’s very important to find ways to present the complex issues related to these topics to a wider, less proficient audience.
Linear Digressions’ hosts, Ben Jaffe and Katie Malone, try to do this by pointing out to real-world applications of neural networks and some machine learning concepts. It’s short, interesting and relatively easy to digest, so listening to their 15-30 minute episodes definitely won’t be a waste of time
Data Stories
Data Stories is a podcast created by Enrico Bertini and Moritz Stefaner, and it runs once a week. It features guests from different fields, and the discussions are probably a bit more focused than in the case of other presented podcasts. The main talking point is data visualization, so if you happen to have an interest in this field, this podcast is a great place to start. Over one hundred episodes have been aired already, and with each episode 30-50 minutes long, that’s a huge amount of content you can enjoy.
There are many more podcasts that deal with topics of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, such as Concerning AI, This Week in Machine Learning and AI, Partially Derivative or Freakonomics Radio. If you’re interested in these fields, you should choose the podcasts that suit your level of understanding and specific areas of interest. Whichever you pick, having a little extra knowledge on these matters won’t hurt you, since these are all growing industries, with AI industry alone predicted to become a $5 billion business by 2020. In any event, it will be time well-spent compared to endless scrolling through social networks.
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