Industry Insider Archives

AI to enhance new job and employment engagement

Contrary to popular belief, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have a “positive impact” on workplaces as it would create new job roles besides enhancing employee engagement and decision-making, a report said on September 6.
Artificial Intelligence to diversify human thinking
According to a Tata Communications’ study based on inputs from 120 global business leaders, Artificial Intelligence will diversify human thinking rather than replace it.

Artificial Intelligent: Statistics
As per the study, 90 per cent leaders agree that cognitive diversity is important for management

75 per cent respondents expect AI to create new roles for their employees
93 per cent believe that AI will enhance decision-making
AI to help people become more productive
“While AI will replace some tasks, it will also create new ways of working, new jobs and new roles in companies. AI will also help people as well as organisations become more productive. It’s not man vs machine, rather man and machine working together,” Tata Communications CEO and MD Vinod Kumar told PTI.

The report further noted that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to assess each employee’s skills and innovation priorities, and suggest activities to spark creative thinking throughout the organisational hierarchy.
This can democratise the creative process and increase engagement of all workers.

More focus on communication and innovation
AI will also free employees from most tedious repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus more on communication and innovation.
“Work will move from being task-based to strategic, enabling workers to enhance their curiosity and creative thinking,” it added.
According to Professor Ken Goldberg, a leading AI researcher at UC Berkeley, there is fear now that AI will surpass human thinking and that machines are superior to humans.

“Robots and AI are not going to take away this creative, insightful, empathetic aspect of almost every job,” Goldberg noted.

The Promise of AI is in Assistive Intelligence

This is a contributed piece by Francois Ajenstat, chief product officer at Tableau Software and has been written in response to a recent piece by our senior staff writer, Dan Swinhoe

As artificial intelligence surges to the forefront of modern society, research and debate swirls around the power and role it should play. More often than not, a cloud of skepticism looms over the topic of security of jobs in the workforce. However, if we consider AI as assistive intelligence rather than an asteroid on a collision course, humans can take advantage of the opportunities presented through its advancement. With this approach, humans enhance, rather than replace skills, leading to increased benefit from technology and improvements in quality of life.
Applications of AI have the ability to empower workers and increase efficiencies across industries and every aspect of the supply chain. To put this into perspective, a recent study from PwC argues that machines will “increase productivity by up to 14.3% by 2030” and the UK’s GDP could be up to 10.3% higher in 2030, equivalent to an additional £232bn ($307bn).

Yet the advantages of AI are not exclusive to a macroeconomic level. Benefits also extend to the individual level by fundamentally changing employee responsibilities. Workers are liberated from daily mundane and menial tasks to explore a higher level of thinking and creativity, ultimately expanding their job roles. Of course, this in turn will translate into positives for their employers as a more engaged workforce leads to increased sales, productivity and employee retention.

In fact, a recent Deloitte Insights study of workers in the public sector showed that many tasks could actually be handled through automation. The study found that documenting and recording information is the most time-consuming for employees, sucking 10% of work hours, which could be saved using technology like AI.

However, AI is not a replacement for tasks simply because they are time-consuming. The same Deloitte study concludes that tasks, like caring for patients, simply cannot be replaced by AI. For example, cognitive technologies cannot assess a patient’s mood or administer medicine, and therefore are not advanced enough to replace the role of workers carrying out such responsibilities. Currently, the reach of AI extends only to enabling human workers with more of the time and resources needed to provide exceptional patient care. Ultimately, AI compliments human intelligence, enabling workers to focus on tasks that require insights and experience beyond what goes into an algorithm.

This brings us to the fact that true business value comes from the capitalisation of uniquely human skills. Individuals fluent in the language of data are already in high demand across the corporate world. While machine learning backed algorithms and AI assist decision makers in accessing and analysing relevant data, some tasks are abstract or situational and require an amount of intuition and experience to make the best decisions. Humans are uniquely qualified to ensure the encoded assumptions are reasonable and then to ask meaningful follow-up questions that link answers back to business problems.

While AI can find unexpected outliers and identify patterns within the data, human analysis plays a vital role in gathering useful insights from what they find on the screen. This is especially true when those problems lie in industries such as marketing, where success is often related to one’s ability to make a personal connection between brands and consumers – human to human. AI can be used to sort through data and identify a target audience, but only humans have the emotional intelligence to create a story that will resonate with the right audiences and deliver results.

Just as any mammal adapts to a change in its environment, so too will the human race. Machines have yet to match humans in regards to solving contextual business problems with big data. They lack the ability to draw from personal experience, context, emotion and the ingenuity required to go that next step. Exploring this scope is therefore paramount in acquiring job security and increasing workers’ purpose.

The debate surrounding AI will only intensify with its continued expansion. As with any groundbreaking development, the fear of disrupting the status quo is unavoidable. However, disruption does not have to equal destruction.
What matters is how we respond and find new ways to thrive alongside technology.

Southeast Asia Lag Behind in Security

Why is ASEAN at risk?
“You have quite a wide variation in terms of where these countries are in their digital journey so that’s why the numbers you see in terms of under investment [are so different],” says Gareth Pereira, a principal at AT Kearney.

“There’s a wide disparity and that’s partly the reason why you see this region lagging behind.”

It may not come as a surprise that Singapore tops the list for cybersecurity. The city-state has invested eye-watering sums of money into smart city initiatives and digital industries. If cybersecurity was passed over, then it would be staring at a truly disastrous situation.

Singapore spent 0.22% of its GDP on cybersecurity in 2017, the third highest spender globally after Israel and the UK. Malaysia spent 0.08%, putting it in ninth place, well behind Japan, South Korea, and the US.

On the flipside, ASEAN countries like Brunei and Laos are much further behind, which drags down the average for ASEAN. These countries are not only spending less on security but their overall network preparedness is lower than their neighbors.

Pereira anticipates that this under investment “will persist over time” and is unlikely to be fixed too quickly. While ASEAN has a consensus-minded approach and will agree on matters like capacity building, it is down to each country to make a move respectively.

“We don’t see the sort of legislative framework that the EU has so that becomes a bit of an issue,” explains Pereira.

“You get countries like Singapore and Malaysia trying to push the envelope in terms of what the other countries should be doing but there’s no unifying framework in place in ASEAN to look at national strategy around cybersecurity, to look at legislation, to look at governance. There’s nothing to monitor progress in this area.”
In Europe, there’s the GDPR, which comes into effect in May and will hand out staggering fines to companies with poor security.

“I don’t think fines is the right way to go about it,” Pereira responds. “I think companies need to cognizant a little bit more about the value at risk for them.”
The costs of cyberattacks are much more prevalent and known now, so a case needs to be made internally for greater cybersecurity spending, which in the long term will lead to a greater return on investment.

As the cost of cyberattacks starts to impact the bottom line, the very top echelons of the c-suite will have no choice but to take notice. It’s no longer the realm of the IT department and CEOs are being held to account. After the infamous Equifax breach last year, its CEO Richard Smith resigned. Those at the top must pay attention.

What is the attack surface?
All the obvious targets are at risk: critical infrastructure, banking, telecoms, public utilities, healthcare, and transport systems.

The proliferation of IoT and connected devices in both the enterprise and among consumers has opened up a whole host of new threats and risks too. Again, Singapore has been the most advanced here – deploying sensors collecting huge amounts of data – but Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok have all launched their own smart city programs. This has opened more avenues for attack.

“In the last few years, the transportation sector has seen the proliferation of IoT and connected cars, which have the potential to be ubiquitously connected and form a far larger attack surface for DDOS – multiple times larger than what we have seen in the Mirai worm example,” said one transport authority official quoted in the report, referring to the botnet that took down hundreds of sites through DDOS attacks in late 2016.

This digital connection between long running infrastructure and new technologies highlights the need for better coordination between the public and private sector.
To this end, AT Kearney has proposed a Rapid Action Cybersecurity Framework. This involves creating new agencies responsible for cybersecurity awareness and coordination among different sectors and setting standards that everyone follows. Singapore has taken an approach like this.
“Let’s say there is an attack on a bank in Singapore, this is brought to the notice of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which alerts all the other banks. In future, it’s that process of collecting information and sharing it around which gets you better prepared to deal with emerging threats.”

How about the rest of Asia?
With all this talk of ASEAN, you may have forgotten about the rest of Asia. The continent’s biggest economies are a little more aware of the risks and taking action. China is obviously a regular topic of conversation but that’s usually on the offensive front. On the defensive, the Chinese government has instituted its own GDPR-like law.

In the approach to the winter Olympics, South Korea set up a cyber defense team to assuage cyber threats. Similarly, as Japan prepares for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the government has established a separate agency for monitoring potential attacks on critical infrastructure.

But Japan and other developed countries share one thing with ASEAN – skills shortages. Japan is now issuing its own agenda for stimulating IT security employment in the economy. The number of professionals coming out of universities is “simply inadequate” says Pereira and will need to speed up in order to meet demand. He points to specific shortages in behavioral and forensics analytics.

Skills and money alone won’t solve the problem though.
“It’s important where you’re spending that money, are you spending it largely on firewalls or are you spending it on other aspects, on what we call the cybersecurity lifecycle, which is how do you recover?” says Pereira. Attitude and approach will be key: “What is your response mechanism?”

Property Investment Market Continuing to Hit New Heights in Hong Kong

According to a report by JLL’s latest Property Market Monitor, the property investment market in Hong is continuously hitting new heights since last year, which is also riding on strong global investor interest.

A total of four en-bloc office buildings were sold for a total consideration of HKD 14.8 billion in 2018, which is about 17% higher than last year.

The en-bloc sale of 18 King Wah Road drew the most attention, setting a new record for the largest office transaction in Hong Kong East.

Decentralization remained as a key theme playing out among office tenants in the leasing market. The spotlight and the focus of leasing activity was on Hong Kong East and Kowloon East. Here tenant decentralization and consolidation requirements underpinned demand. Net take-up in the overall market amounted to 209,900 sq. ft till date. The net absorption in Central reached 33,000 sq. ft. as diverse tenants requested room for expansion.

“The broadening gap between rents in Central and emerging core business districts will add momentum to decentralization. We expect Hong Kong’s Grade A office market rentals to continue to trend higher, rising by up to 5% in 2018, with the support of the outbound growth of Mainland Chinese companies. Central will continue to outperform the overall market as demand competes for the pockets of space that exist,” reports Alex Barnes, Head of Markets at JLL.

On the back of a tightened vacancy environment, office rents in Central advanced by 0.7% m-o-m in January. There was a rise in rents in Hong Kong East region by 0.8% m-o-m, driven largely by increasing demand at the top-end of the market.

“The strong pricing achieved in the government sale of the Murray Road Car Park in May last year is now starting to permeate through the broader office market as investors reset benchmarks. With local money also flowing into the market, the record high prices being set in the market are no longer relying solely on PRC buyers. We expect capital values to rise a further 5-10% in 2018 even with interest rates set to rise further,” asserted Denis Ma, Head of Research at JLL.

The sentiment remained upbeat buttressed by record high land sale for government sites in Kowloon as well as strong gains in the local stock market, in the city’s residential market. The mass residential properties’ capital values raised up by 0.9% m-o-m in the first month of 2018 following to an increase of 1.3% m-o-m the previous month.

Mobile Ecosystem in Latin America

More than a billion individuals across Latin America will be connected to a mobile network by the end of the decade, equivalent to about three-quarters of the region’s population. Some markets in the region will be approaching saturation by this point, but many will still have plenty of room for growth. But the real story in

Latin America is not about market penetration: it is about the rapid migration to smartphones and super-fast mobile networks and the impact this is having on society and the region’s economies.

The mass-market adoption of smartphones is a relatively recent phenomenon in Latin America. Smartphones accounted for fewer than one in 10 connections as recently as 2012. However, declining handset prices and the increasing availability of subsidies and finance offerings by mobile operators has led to a surge in smartphone adoption in recent years. Today, smartphones account for about 60 per cent of the 690 million connections on Latin American mobile networks.

The move to 4G networks has also been slower in Latin America compared to markets such as the US and Europe – but 4G has now reached critical mass in the region, providing coverage to 70 per cent of the population. As of June 2017, Latin American mobile operators had launched more than a hundred 4G networks across 45 markets. 4G now accounts for approximately a quarter of mobile connections in the region, almost doubling from a year earlier, due to strong take-up of 4G in large markets such as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Local operators are set to invest nearly $70 billion in their networks by the end of the decade, much of which will focus on expanding 4G coverage.

5G networks are just around the corner too: the first commercial 5G networks in the region are expected to be switched on in 2020 and are forecast to provide coverage to around half of the population by 2025.

Around three-quarters of the Latin America’s mobile subscribers – almost 350 million people – use their devices to access the internet, more people than do so in the US. Moreover, Latin America has some of the most advanced and engaged mobile internet users in the world. Three of the top ten countries surveyed by We Are Social/Hootsuite on daily mobile internet usage are Latin American, with Brazil ranked second. Smartphones have also been instrumental in establishing Latin America as one of the world’s largest consumers of social media, with the vast majority of usage occurring over mobile networks.

With faster devices and networks, it’s no surprise that mobile data consumption is rising rapidly. At the same time, local operators are becoming increasingly successful at monetizing data traffic. In Brazil, for example, Telefónica Vivo reported a 144 per cent year-on-year increase in data traffic in Q2 2017, which it attributed to improving 4G coverage and strong adoption and consumption trends. But the operator was also able to report a 31 per cent increase in data ARPU, which more than offset declines in voice revenue.

As a result of rising smartphone adoption and 4G usage, the mobile ecosystem in Latin America provides a large, scalable platform for entrepreneurism. A vibrant tech startup ecosystem is emerging in major regional hubs such as Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Mexico City.

As a result of these trends, Latin America’s mobile ecosystem will be a growing contributor to the region’s economy over the next few years. In 2016, the industry added $260 billion in economic value, equivalent to 5 per cent of GDP. This figure is forecast to grow to $320 billion by the end of the decade (5.6 per cent of GDP), underlying the ecosystem’s increasing importance as a platform for innovation, investment and entrepreneurism.

Mexico: Fintech to Drive Competitive Growth

Mexico is making the greatest strides in Latin America when it comes to regulating the fast growing fintech industry.

A new bill doing the rounds promises to protect consumers and stimulate competition, keep a watchful eye over payment security and cryptocurrencies, and prevent money laundering or terrorist funding.
It’s a notably progressive step for Mexico to take. It will join a select number of other countries like Germany that have introduced explicit fintech legislation. According to Federico de Noriega Olea, partner at the Mexican offices of law firm Hogan Lovells, the law should provide more legal certainty for firms to carry out and expand their businesses, which may also mean greater access to funds.

It will at the same time place greater responsibility on companies to adhere to the rules, such as meeting capital requirements and reporting obligations. The more mature companies that have been carrying out some form of self-regulation may be better equipped to deal with this change. Younger companies that have just launched may struggle to adapt.

“The rules will definitely create a barrier to entry,” says de Noriega Olea. “Any regulation is in itself a barrier to entry. Again, the degree of such a barrier will depend on secondary regulation. I don’t believe the regulator is planning to create a high barrier to entry because one of the main goals of the proposed law is to foster competition.”

Bridging the credit gap
As per figures from 2015 from Encuesta Nacional de Inclusion Financiera (ENIF), a survey on financial inclusion, 44% of Mexican adults do not have a bank account. That figure may have changed slightly in the last two years but it speaks to a problem in Latin America’s second largest economy where adults have little or no access to credit or financial services. While there’s plenty of bluster and big promises, fintech is trying to bridge that gap and regulation can either be a friend or an enemy.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has been supporting fintech companies already active in the country, such as online and P2P lenders Afluenta and Kreditech, which provide a new bent on traditional services. Fintech has regularly threatened to upend traditional financial institutions but both sides of this coin will be affected by a change in the law.

“We consider that the legislation, as it is now, has the right elements to promote innovation in the financial industry,” says Carlos López-Moctezuma, head of new digital businesses and financial inclusion at BBVA Bancomer, one of Mexico’s biggest banks. “However, we need to keep track of the secondary legislation because those are actually the operative guidelines on how the fintech legislation is going to be implemented.”
BBVA Bancomer is very active in the fintech space itself. In August, it launched its startup sandbox programme, inviting startups inside the bank to work on new fintech services. These very companies will fall under the rules of this new legislation.

“However this is not something new for us in the way that we as a bank have been supervised, and prior to beginning working with another company, depending on the services offered by them, we have to be authorised by the authority,” López-Moctezuma adds.
“This is something that will affect fintech [companies] that haven’t been working with banks so far because they will have to spend resources in order to comply with the new regulation.”

Ahead of the pack
Mexico is the most forward in the Latin American region as far as implementing fintech regulations. Other countries haven’t moved as prominently but are starting to take notice. Brazil, the region’s biggest economy, is evaluating new legislation on how the technology should be regulated.

The Brazilian central bank published the draft law for consultation in August. According to an official from the bank, the law is specifically designed to address crowdfunding and online lending.

“The proposed regulation is expected to improve the regulatory framework for this type of electronic credit contract while contributing to the enhancement of efficiency and competition in the credit market,” he explains. “Such benefits are likely to reduce banking spread and boost the real economy, reaching microfinance operations.”

The Mexican law has not yet been passed and it’s expected that there will be many amendments made to the final document before the consultation period ends. Following the public consultation, the bill will eventually make its way to Congress but it’s difficult to pin down any time frame.

“Hopefully, it will be approved before year end,” says de Noriega Olea, “but I personally don’t believe that will happen because Congress has other priorities now, including discussing of the 2018 budget.”
That budget of course will be under much scrutiny in the wake of the earthquake in September which will mean funds being allocated to rebuilding and recovery, so fintech regulations may not exactly be on the forefront of Mexican politicians’ minds.

High Tech to Boost the Growth of Mexican

“Mexico is spending US$5 billion to modernise its ports as it seeks to double cargo handled from 250 million tons to 500 million tons during the six-year tenure of President Peña Nieto (2012-2018),” he explains.

As part of this project, Mexico is investing in three inter-oceanic multi-modal corridors. “[These are] the Northern corridor, which connects the Port of Mazatlan in the Pacific with the Port of Altamira in the Gulf of Mexico, the central corridor that connects the ports of Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo in the Pacific with the Ports of Tuxpan and Veracruz on the Gulf, and the Southern, or Tehuantepec Isthmus corridor, which is seen as an economic development engine for the region. This connects the ports of Salina Cruz in the Pacific with the port of Coatzacoalcos in the Gulf,” Diaz-Balart highlights.

One of the biggest recent challenges for Latin America’s ports has been the ‘stress’ they’ve experienced thanks to the cascading effect felt from shipping lines using ever-larger vessels.

As part of its plan to improve Mexican ports’ capacities, the government contracted APM Terminals to design, build and operate a new deep water terminal at the country’s second busiest port.
“This terminal will enable bigger volumes to be handled on the Pacific coast of the country – a strategic area for shipping connections to Asia,” notes José Rueda, Managing Director of APM Terminals Mexico.

The high tech terminal, called APM Terminals Lazaro Cardenas, opened to receive its first official vessel call in February, once phase one of construction was completed. Its depth is currently 16.5m, deep enough for today’s biggest container ships, but will be deepened to 18m to accommodate future larger vessels. Currently 750m in length, the quay will also be lengthened to 1.5km, with further cranes and rail tracks to be installed, eventually increasing the terminal’s capacity to 4.1 million TEU’s – twice the current capacity of Mexico’s biggest port, Manzanillo. This work is scheduled for completion between 2027 and 2030.

Semi-automated processes geared towards increased productivity
Regarding technology, it uses semi-automated processes that are geared toward delivering higher productivity and availability for clients, as well as contributing to Mexican trade growth by offering a new gateway for commerce. As Rueda highlights, APM Terminals believes that digitisation and automation are key factors to success in this sector – globally.

“Connectivity, delivery times and digitalisation are from my point of view challenges in the business, but not only regarding this region,” he notes. “Terminals in the near future will need to operate with service standards unknown today and this will be a basic requirement in less than ten years. We understand these requirements and at APM Terminals Lazaro Cardenas we are now ready to bring our customers the service of the future.

“Our semi-automated terminal has automated gates and stacking cranes are operated from the control room in the office building,” he highlights. “Both the gates and cranes are equipped with optical character recognition (OCR) and in general all areas of the terminal use the most advanced technologies available.”

The port’s high tech nerve centre is of course its control room. Even before a ship docks, its cargo manifest will be in the system and an unloading sequence worked out. The OCR identifies containers, allowing the operator to track its progress throughout the terminal and sensors assist them with trajectory prediction, alignment and stacking.

Cargo flows are segregated depending on the next destination and mode of transport. For example, if the container is moving on by rail, the terminal management system will schedule a railcar and interact with the shunting software to ensure that an optimal train composition is created in the on-dock rail facilities.

Once the container has left the terminal by whatever means, it is automatically tracked until it leaves APM Terminals’ custody.

“This investment brings the highest productivity and reliability in operations, providing error reduction, accuracy, reliability and cost savings. It also provides a safer working environment and enables our employees to develop new skill sets,” Rueda highlights.

A concerted bid to improve the supply chain to Asia
This project is just one part of a much wider undertaking to improve Mexico’s supply chain to Asia and the rest of the Americas. APM Terminals Lazaro Cardenas provides improved connectivity to its inland terminal in the industrial centre of Mexico City, home to more than 200 onward distribution centres, also helping to improve Mexico’s trade routes. But as well as boosting trade, projects such as this are boosting local communities by providing more skilled jobs, which in turn help regional economies.

“Before I joined APM I was basically an unskilled worker, even though I had a good high school education,” says Martin Aviles Luna, an STS crane operator. “Many of my colleagues were in the same boat as myself, so to speak, and they too have been set on a promising career path.’”

Foreign Tech Firm Needs a Threat

There’s no denying that the technology industry is rapidly evolving. And as a result, the companies that operate within this lucrative sector are also growing. From Apple to Samsung, the tech elite have billions of dollars at their disposal and are becoming ever more powerful.
With all this power, they’re capable of exerting their dominance and influencing countries around the world. But while high-growth technology companies are contributing massive amounts of money to global economies, some people fear that these firms pose a security risk to critical infrastructure systems.
The United States is an example of a country that has slammed foreign technology companies in recent times. Recently, American lawmakers ordered telco AT&T to sever its ties with Huawei over fears that the Chinese mobile phone maker is simply becoming too powerful. They believe that the firm poses a grave threat to national security.

Creating security backdoors
The worry for government officials – especially in the United States – is that foreign technology companies could use backdoors to compromise state information security. Scott Crawford, a director at 451 Research, believes that this issue plays out on “multiple” levels. But it is “often more visible when it comes to security risks, rather than foreign dominance”.
He tells us: “In many of these cases, the concern is that foreign interests could introduce technology or capabilities into the US that could introduce a risk to US information security – a risk that could be difficult to ferret out, if such a threat could be obscured within the technology.”
American security researchers have been looking into these threats for years, as the 2012 case with Huawei and ZTE certainly proves. However, Crawford makes it clear that these incidents aren’t just exclusive to Beijing – they come from countries globally. “These concerns arise in part from evidence gathered by security researchers in recent years alleging either direct or indirect involvement of foreign interests in breaches of sensitive information security. China has repeatedly been alleged to be behind many of these incidents – but it isn’t the only nation seen as posing a threat to foreign interests,” he says.

US as the culprit
The United States isn’t exactly innocent when it comes to surveillance and other espionage activities. Former CIA employee Edward Snowden has offered a great deal of insight into the country’s cyber spying over the years. “The US itself is often seen in this light, particularly following Edward Snowden’s allegations about US surveillance activities. It is therefore not surprising, perhaps, that in 2012, investigations by the US House of Representatives flared around accusations that Huawei and ZTE were doing exactly what the NSA was revealed to be doing two years later with their Tailored Access Operations teams,” explains Crawford.
Responding to these allegations, the Chinese have also been hesitant to accept American technologies into their market. Companies such as Apple and Google have struggled to reach out to the masses in the country. “China itself has reportedly opposed the incursion of US tech leaders into its markets, though many strategic tech companies have sought to reach rapprochement with China to ease concerns,” he says.

Companies that rely solely on foreign technology providers could be putting themselves at risk, admits Crawford. “There is concern at a more strategic level. Should any nation become dependent on a foreign technology provider for capabilities critical to society, it could be placing its strategic interests at risk. At the personal level, this concern could arise regarding technology critical to individual health or safety. At the societal level, it could involve technologies seen as part of critical infrastructure,” he explains.
He expects governments to become tougher on technology companies with the rise of IoT, concluding: “We would expect these concerns to color government response to the continued rise of the Internet of Things, as smart computing capability becomes increasingly integrated with the technologies of everyday life, from large-scale utilities to the smart home.”

A growing security risk
James Wickes, CEO and co-founder of cloud-based visual surveillance company Cloudview, says governments are right to be concerned about foreign companies that become too powerful. He tells us that the threats are “particularly felt in the domain of CCTV equipment, where the security services have not only raised concerns but identified specific threats”. Wickes points out to a situation in the 2016 case when MI6 became worried about Chinese company Hikvision being Britain’s largest supplier of CCTV equipment. He says UK security specialists “expressed grave concerns about the potential security risk, particularly for internet connected cameras”.

In May 2017, the US Department of Homeland Security highlighted similar vulnerabilities. It found a range of problems in connected cameras and issued a security advisory notice. Wickes explains that security researchers have also reported “backdoors in a range of cameras from other manufacturers that allow remote unauthorized administrative access via the web”, giving cyber crooks the ability to target government systems. He says: “Such backdoors are rarely an oversight, and are built in by people who know what they’re doing. They provide a means for hackers to come and go undetected, bypassing all usual security measures.”
In extreme circumstances, cyber criminals could use these backdoors to launch devastating terrorist attacks on countries. “They could even allow the hacker to configure the device to allow front door entry by unwanted persons to appear legitimate. This could easily result in a security breach that affects national security or competitiveness. With an inbuilt back door, poor IoT security might be a little too tempting for a nosey nation, while for terrorists, why bother with suicide bombs if you can shut down power stations, open dams and look at CCTV footage of major cities and public places at will,” he concludes.

While the news that the US Government wants to stop AT&T from forging an ever-closer business relationship with Huawei may seem slightly extreme, it appears that some of these worries are just. There are instances where governments rely too much on foreign technologies, leaving them exposed to attack from state actors. Clearly, security organizations need to keep a closer eye on government IT infrastructure to ensure it’s robust enough to fend off cyber crooks.

Costa Rica: The Best Place in the World for Retirees in 2018

According to a report, Costa Rica took the top spot for the first time in the index’s history. It topped the categories of healthy lifestyle and healthcare while scoring well in the fitting in, governance, entertainment and amenities, and climate categories.

A Costa Rica Central Valley Correspondent said, “Costa Rica has it all! It has perfect year-round tropical climate, your choice of Caribbean or Pacific beaches, mountains and volcanoes, big cities and nightlife or tranquil rural settings.”

As a proportion of Gross Domestic Product than the U.K., Costa Rica invests more in education and health. As a result, Costa Ricans enjoy a literacy rate approaching 98% and a long life expectancy. The country regularly wins accolades as having the happiest people on earth.

Ticos have established in their country one of the world’s most stable democracies. Costa Rica dissolved its standing army in 1949 and the reallocated funds are spent on education, healthcare, and pensions.

Costa Rica is already filled with a thousands of U.S. and Canadian people and millions have traveled there over the years for beach-resort vacations, surfing, fishing, and many more. With many Costa Ricans speaking English, it’s pretty easy for retirees to navigate while learning more Spanish.

With about 25% of the country’s territory protected, there is a focus on preserving the environment in Costa Rica. There is also a commitment from the government to power the country on solely renewable sources, especially hydroelectric, wind, and geothermal.

While Costa Rica wins the top spot as the most favorite country to travel, it’s just one of 24 countries examined in 12 categories, including: buying and investing; renting; benefits and discounts; visas and residence; governance; cost of living; fitting in; entertainment and amenities; healthcare; healthy lifestyle; development; and climate.

The motto of this guide is to assist the retirees to find locations, their currency goes further, and they can get the best bang for buck in terms of real estate, cost of living, and overall quality of life.

Building a software Company, all you need is the Balance

In the era of ‘Digital Transformation’, we’re repeatedly told two mantras: Software is eating the world, and every company is now a software company.
Unsurprisingly for a company that specialises in software development, CA Technologies is a big proponent of the idea. The company’s CTO, Otto Berkes, has even written a book about it. But he takes this concept further.

He says that companies should look to become “Modern Software Factories”; where not only are companies developing their own software, but doing so in a way that makes use of all the most up to date practices and tools around DevOps, Automation, Continuous Delivery, and security.

Mastering your software transformation
CA recently released a study, Don’t Let an Outdated Software Strategy Hold You Back, designed to explore how far along companies are on this journey towards every becoming a software company.

At an event launching the research, Berkes warned that there are “Already leaders and laggards in race to build software factories.”
The report suggests that while most businesses understand the importance and need for better software and processes for developing them, few have actually perfected their implementation of the concept. Only around a quarter of the 1,200+ companies surveyed reported widespread use or implementation of tools such as automation and application analytics as well as deployment of DevOps and security principles.

Those that embrace this concept get more than just applause in reports: The companies that are leading the way towards this software-driven way of doing business – what the report calls the ‘Masters’ – report higher revenue and profit growth than other companies. These ‘masters’ were also seen to be better at attracting talent and more agile.

You can’t just buy your way to digital transformation
Whether it’s John Deere acquiring Blue River for its Machine Learning skills, GM buying Cruise Automation for its self-driving car nous, ASSA ABLOY paying up for smartlock startup August Home, or Boeing snapping up Aurora Flight Sciences, legacy companies left and right are buying the tech startups trying to disrupt them in an effort to try and get ahead of the game.

Cultural change
Beyond the mere acquisition of talent – through hiring or buying – the hard work can be changing the way the company as a whole thinks and works.
“The cultural aspect is often underestimated. You can spend a ton of resources acquiring a ton of talent, but if you don’t have the systems and the culture in place to support and enable them, it will become a futile exercise.”

Company culture, however, is often driven by the people at the top. If a company’s execs and leaders aren’t able to adapt to the digital way of doing things that can stop any kind of evolution actually taking place anywhere in the organisation.
“We talk about talent gaps today focused on software development talent, but we also need the right talent at all levels of leadership to be able to move into a new way of harnessing software.”

“It’s a question of talent management. Leadership absolutely is a part of that challenge. There are going be many cases where leadership change needs to happen along with the rest of the talent change.”

However, although change often means new faces being brought on board, simply gutting the company of its older faces isn’t wise. AWS Chief Architect Glenn Core recently told IDG Connect that keeping experience on board is incredibly important during these kinds of transformations in order to ensure new ideas are implemented in a responsibly and logical way, and Berkes agrees.

“With this kind of transformation you need a balance of talent, institutional knowledge, and memory: they know where some of the pitfalls are and where it’s better to tread cautiously, and to integrate new talent, people, and thinking into the organisation in a thoughtful way.”

“The reality in business is you don’t have the option of putting a pause on everything and starting over, you need to make sure that the business that you have continues to operate while you bring in new processes and transform the business. It’s critical to have people who have the historical context to provide that continuity.”

DevSecOps

Given we live in an age of constant hacks and mega breaches, security should be first and foremost in the minds of all developers. Sadly, this is rarely the case. Security companies often talk about the idea of ‘Security by Design’, but given the alarming frequency products are shipped with poor security, it’s clearly not something that’s really reached the ears of developers.
Berkes and CA are keen to emphasise the security aspect of their ‘software factory’ vision, and are proponents of the concept of DevSecOps.

“The idea is to move away from the idea of having security be this thing that you think about at the end of the development cycle, this process you apply right before you release software, and have it be a core competency at all stages of development.”

However, just like changing a company’s whole mindset can be a challenge, so can ingraining security into development. Berkes argues that the concept has to be translated into very specific actions and outcomes in order to have a material impact.

“It’s one thing to talk about secure by design, it’s another to actually have the right tools to be able to cover the software lifecycle.”
Instead of simply telling developers ‘make sure you write secure code’, says Berkes, companies should instead offer tools that will actually help them identify and address security gaps in code.

In response to the general apathy security often receives from people outside the infosec bubble, some have proposed legislating that certain security frameworks for application development should be put in place to legally mandate how developers approach security.

“Legislation is tricky, partially because of the nature of security: nothing is 100% secure, so how do you legislate something you can’t guarantee?”
Instead, Berkes says he’d like to see something more akin to indicators of effort that show how seriously a company takes security.

“[People] download and cross their fingers and hope because there’s no way to really tell what amount of effort has gone into the application of security best practices. We need some kind of indication so you can assess make some kind of intelligent, data-driven assessment on level of trust.”
The Australian government is reportedly looking into a similar rating system for Internet of Things-connected products.

“It’s an interesting idea to try to standardize security best practices so that there’s some awareness both within industry and also on the consumer side of the equation so that when we click on something or download something at least you’ve got some idea of the level of effort that had been expended on security for that particular product.”