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!