Is Cloud technology only for engineers? To change to world through cloud is not difficult or scary, as we are led to believe.

How the Cloud can help you change the world?

Imagine for a second that you are not sitting here in one of the most fortunate and wettest places in the

world but that you are sitting on your bike on a dirt road in Kenya each day you have to travel for kilometres

just to get enough water. For that day and often you have to travel for longer

sometimes you fail and you have to return with dirty water or no water at

all this is the reality for two-thirds of a billion people and every day almost

a thousand children under the age of five die from diarrheal disease caused

by unsafe drinking water.

Water insecurity is one of humankind’s most pressing challenges. What if before you started your quest for water that day

you know knew exactly where to go and when you got there. The sustainability of your well was improved.

What if getting clean drinking water was no quest at all this is exactly the

problem that reach an Oxford University project is trying to solve using in

expected in expensive sensors mobile technology and the cloud the pump

handles are equipped with sensors the sensor sends data wirelessly through the

Internet to the cloud and in the cloud the data points are processed and turn

into real actionable information about water levels pump usage operations etc

the data points that are flowing through to the cloud are too many to be solved

by an ordinary computer and that’s with a cloud place

the crucial role saying that I am enthusiastic and optimistic about how

you can use the cloud or use either use technology to improve people’s lives is

an understatement I believe that technology can help us solve the many challenges that we face on this planet

when I was a kid technology was like magic not the cheap tricks that puzzles

you makes you laugh but something real that had the power to change the world

something that empowered us with abilities beyond what we were born with something that turn us into superheroes.

Because technology impacts everything we do and in line in line with the theme of

this conference it has the power to disrupt the norm the story from Kenya is just one example of how the cloud can

have a huge positive impact what makes the cloud so exciting is that it’s at

the center of the digital revolution that is happening all around us and that

is available to everyone everywhere for the first for the first time in our

history that means that their opportunity to innovate to improve our

surrounding is available to everyone I believe it represents the biggest

opportunity of our lifetime and it’s my hope for this talk that you share this idea that no matter what you do or what

your field of work is that you’ll start to think about how you can use the cloud

because what you can do with the cloud is too powerful to leave only to people

like me the technologists

when I travel down and talk to people about the cloud and ask them what it is

the most common answer is is where I store my pictures followed by I don’t

understand it and I probably could not get my pictures

back if I lost my phone and yes they are right you can use the cloud to store

pictures but it’s a lot more powerful than that my goal for this talk is to get you access excited about the cloud

as I am or at least get you interested so let’s first start by demystifying the

cloud first thing I suggest we do is that we start by using something more

familiar I guess everyone knows what a computer is it has a processor or a

brain it can store and process information you can run programs and

games and you can interact with it using a mouse a keyboard voice or gestures

based on this you could say that the cloud is a really really really big

computer big enough to fit airplanes inside it in rows and columns looking

something like this but there are four unique characteristics that makes the

cloud more than just a big computer first you don’t have to buy it you only

pay for what you use second it has virtually unlimited capacity for

processing in storage three it contains super advanced tools and and building

blocks that are simple to use and four it can mimic our brain slightly can

reason and learn so let’s dive into those four areas getting started with no

upfront costs that’s the revolution compute power has

now become like a utility like electricity before the cloud when you

wanted to explore idea we’ll start a company you had to

invest thousands maybe millions of dollars just to get started with the

cloud you can get access for free and you can start to use it and only pay for

what you use prefer the minute and as little as a few cents per unit and you

can start using this capacity using only an ordinary computer or even a

smartphone and that means that the barrier the cost barrier for innovation

has been set to almost zero second a limited capacity unlimited capacity so

let’s say you have an idea and your idea takes off and you get a million users from around the globe ordinarily that’s

a super critical time with a large chance of failure using the cloud it’s

no problem because being the biggest computer in the world it will just

automatically take care of everything and you don’t have to do anything but

unlimited capacity also have another huge advantage and it allows you to

think differently about problems there are problems that are almost impossible to solve or certainly impractical unless

you have the capacity needed to solve them let’s use the human genome project

as an example it took years to map the first genome costing billions of

dollars less than a decade later mapping the second genome reduce the time and cost of mapping it by a million today

using the vast capacity of the cloud you can now map your a my genome in a matter of days costing as little as a few

thousand dollars opening up for new and innovative approaches and personalized

treatments for things like cancer and other diseases

the third characteristics of the catalyst of the cloud is that it

contains super advanced building blocks that are simple to use the cloud

represents decades of innovation computer science computer practices and innovation in the analogy of standing on

the shoulder of giants this is like standing on us on the shoulder of a

giant the size of Mount Everest the

cloud is a virtual ecosystem of solutions tools data and they can all be

discovered through an app store and you can pull the pieces together and mix and

match them by using simple programming so if you have an idea you can form a

small team and you can mix and match the components much faster and a lot less

risk than before let’s say you had a bet an idea of a better way to connect

people with transportation you would need something like location-based

services you would need maps you need the billing system etc etc all of these

are already available in the cloud and you can form a small team put them

together and you could be up and running very quickly and certainly a lot faster

than if you had to build all the components for yourself the fourth and

probably the most exciting part that makes the cloud more than just a big computer is its ability to mimic our

human brains this is often referred to as artificial intelligence or AI and is based actually on principles discovered

as early in the s but it’s only now been made practical because of the

capacity of the cloud the way it works is that these deep learning techniques

are programmed into the cloud using algorithms or recipes if you like for

what to do with information then information

it’s been pushed through the algorithms and gradually the cloud starts to

recognize patterns and start to reason and make predictions on its own and this is opposite of in the past where every

respond spawns needed to be programmed what makes it practical is that all this

brain is available to everyone through simple interfaces and that again allows the the cloud to improve and learn so

what are the implications you may have heard of self-driving cars self-driving

cars rely on computer visions and sensors and to make the right responses

so how it works is that what the car sees and senses is brought up into the

cloud and the right response is based on then millions of miles of road traveled

you could say that the car then gets equipped with the driver or a co-pilot

that in experience surpasses the most experienced driver on the planet just

imagine what that can do to reduce huge the traffic related death and injuries

and there you have it so the next time somebody asks you what the cloud is you

could say it’s a it’s a really big computer that you don’t have to buy that

has all the capacity you ever need and that you has great building blocks and

tools and it can reason and learn not a tower at all so I hope you agree with me

that the cloud is amazing but you might still wonder how it can help you save

the world or change the world in short the cloud has amazing

capabilities if you use these powers you become a superhero and we all know that superheroes can change the world let me

give you an example a few colleagues of mine got together to solve a challenge

that millions of people face every day this is a kid he lost the use of his eyes when he was and when he walks

into a room he wants to know the same things as we do you know where’s an empty seat who is that person walking up

to me what does that sign say the team formed project seeing AI and the idea

was simple create a seeing assistant that was able to describe a person

surroundings and even people’s emotions using their computer vision and natural

language capabilities of the cloud the way it works is that the key can take a

picture using an app and a camera or a specialized glasses

the pictures are being sent to the cloud which been analyzed and here you see how

its analyzed and the information is then read back to him think about seeing without being being relying on having a

person following you around imagine the confidence and freedom that gives pretty

close to magic every day companies governments nonprofit organizations and startups is using the cloud to change in

disrupt and improve that makes the cloud the biggest change agents of our time

and it’s available to everyone everywhere the means of production have

been democratized

we live in an amazing world the advances we made through technology is

astonishing think about transportation flying space travel from people living

just a hundred years ago our lives are the lives of our science fiction think

about medicine we’ve been able to map the human genome and we had new cures

and impersonal AI cures for cancer think about communication we have virtually

connected everyone on the planet through the internet and yet only a decade ago

our abilities are the stuff of dreams imagine a true testament of human ingenuity and spirit and yet all of this

have been achieved by only using a small fraction of the potential that lies in

using all of us but using the really big computer called the cloud and making its

abilities our own we can become superheroes that can change the world

you can use the vast complete computational powers of the cloud to

find a cure for cancer you can use the image and pattern recognition

capabilities to solve problems that will that before was unsolvable or you can

help improve millions of people’s lives by securing clean water just imagine the possibilities!