InsightaaS has dubbed 2021 “the year of Digitally-Enabled Innovation (DEI).” Over the course of 2021, a series of research reports and public sessions will help Canadian IT professionals to connect with industry best practices (and each other), enabling public and private sector organizations to reap optimal benefit from their digital transformation projects.
The DEI initiative launched on February 18, with a session that attracted nearly 140 registrants, and which provided an apt view of the content and direction of DEI forums.
The session started with a keynote address by Steven Carlini, Vice President of the innovation and energy management business unit within Schneider Electric. In a presentation focused on the rapid pace of change in data centres and networks (“Two years to Two Months: Digital Acceleration”), Steven spoke to five acceleration areas – the “data mushroom,” lights-out data centres, a “contactless touch free world,” automated and integrated manufacturing and demand for an “office building like” work-from-home experience – and to some of the technologies enabling these transformations, including 5G, WiFi 6, DCIM, edge/micro data centres, IT/OT convergence and last mile solutions. His remarks and the subsequent Q&A helped dozens of attendees to understand how emerging technologies will affect demand for new capabilities and the options that IT professionals will have to improve responsiveness and reliability.
The second part of the program consisted of a more informal panel discussion. Led by (ISC)2, the international membership association for information security leaders, and hosted by (ISC)2 Toronto Chapter President Victoria Granova, the session combined perspectives from two Canadian thought leaders – Ferris Adi, Senior Security and Compliance Officer at Rogers, and Maria Koslunova, Manager, Cybersecurity, Privacy and Financial Crime for PwC. After an opening section where Ferris spoke to current security issues and Maria addressed related privacy concerns, attendees had an opportunity to raise issues that are important in their diverse environments, and Ferris and Maria provided perspectives that tied specific recommendations to broader trends.
The session, which was sponsored by Schneider Electric and (ISC)2, is posted as a video on the InsightaaS Vimeo channel. Please stay tuned as DEI examines key digital transformation topics – data centre and edge, cloud and hybrid, analytics and AI, sustainability, the supply ecosystem and governance and security – through a series of research calls and sessions like “Managing DEI.” These essential issues will tie together at GCDCS21, an all-virtual event scheduled for December 8th and 9th. With these sessions, Canadian (and global) data centre and IT service delivery professionals have a rich set of options for professional development and for connecting with peers.
