On October 1, MIT Enterprise Forum Pan-Arab held its second Innovation Forum in partnership with Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) and with the support of Internet Society.
The one-day forum featured a series of networking sessions and discussion panels, delving into topics like Industry 4.0, Cybersecurity, and the Blockchain’s potential revolutionizing the global economy.
The highlight of the day was keynote panel by Dr. Michael Nelson from Cloudflare, who presented to the audience the revolutionary power held in the cloud and decentralized data exchange centers.
According to Dr. Nelson, there are three main drivers for this technological revolution in cloud computing: immense amounts of data (supply), innovative tools and utilisations, and (most importantly) global increase in demand for data.
Here are the key takeaways, or ‘bumper stickers’ as he called them, from his keynote:
- The Internet Revolution is less than 25% complete - the best is yet to come
- Cloud technologies will be as disruptive as the printing press but:
- Much faster
- More unpredictable
- Totally global
- When in doubt, empower the user and empower the citizen
For those who asked for Dr. Nelson’s slides, you can find them here #IF2018
Recommended readings
Articles and Blog Posts:
- “Data Beats Math”, Jeff Jonas, 2014
- “The Second Economy” by Brian Arthur – McKinsey Quarterly
- Anything written by John Hagel at the Deloitte Center for the Edge (Hero’s Journey)
- Economist magazine, January 2018: “The Era of Cloud’s Total Dominance is Coming to a Close”
- Wired magazine: “Cloudflare’s Plan to Protect the Whole Internet Comes into Focus”
Reports
- Getting big impact from big data, McKinsey Quarterly, 2015
- Conceal or Reveal, CSC Leading Edge Forum, Michael Nelson, 2012
- Cisco’s Visual Network Index
Books
