31: Dive Into The Evolution of Technology - with Prashanth Sharma

a BROADcast for Manufacturers

Meet Prashanth Sharma:

Prashanth is the CTO at thought focus and leads the technology function across all business lines and customer engagements. With over 22 years of industry experience. Prashanth is spearheading the next wave of technology growth at thought focus, motivating teams to exceed customer expectations. He's a natural innovator with entrepreneurial flair. Prashanth is driven to architect new tools and strategies that bring together people processes and technology to solve complex business challenges. A trusted technology advisor both in-house and to third focus clients, Prashanth leads the development of innovative business solutions custom-built for client success. Prashanth entrepreneurial mindset has characterized his career, his technology leadership was integral to the success of two technology startups, which have gone into multimillion-dollar solution providers. Before joining thought focus Prashanth worked in key positions at Tech Mahindra and ces era software.

Lori: What is your positioning on AI? And how can people make sure that they're staying relevant and, and ready for the evolution of what's happening in the future here?

Prashanth: That's such a great question only because AI seems to be the centerpiece of conversations for every single person on this planet today, who understands technology, or who connects with technology in some form or the other, right? And typically, whenever there are new technologies, there are always conversations at the beginning of the hype cycle where you think that technology is going to be a game changer, that technology is going to take away jobs, if you want to look at it from a different perspective, or that technology is going to change our lives so drastically that we've got all going to be in flying cars in two years. So, you know, AI has followed the same pattern in terms of human behavior and their analysis of a new technology that is being introduced, and they're getting to know this AI as a technology is not new, how we interact focus have been working on AI technologies for the last eight years. What has changed in the last, probably six months is that it has been democratized by the likes of tech GPT and others. There are also a couple of other technical improvements that have gone into AI models if you will, that have enabled this conversation that we are having, as well as other conversations that other people are having in either boardrooms or podcasts or just to friends on meeting across the table for coffee. It's changed the way people understand AI and look at AI as a practical solution. Because if you log into chat GPD and ask a question, you get an answer that is meaningful enough now that people understand that okay, this is a technology to reckon with, right? So, all right Just a baseline AI is a technology. That's where the conversations are. But primarily, the improvements in the models have resulted in enabling AI as a technology to solve meaningful problems for people or businesses. Asking a question and getting an answer is probably a relatively simple one. But what happens, especially if you take such generative models or transformer models than they do models or where your algorithms create new information or data for you? And when you take both of these algorithms or models, combine them and train them on large data sets, you get a really powerful computing and answering machine for you. And it's only up to the human imagination to figure out how to apply that technology. If your business and if you train those powerful models on a set of data that is within your sphere of business, then it becomes that much more efficient. They're called large language models, primarily because they are connecting information, words, data, and whole large space of the internet, if you will, or data spaces. So when you connect all that language, and words and meanings and everything else and get the context, what you can do with that information is beyond imagination at that point in time. And that is why this technology is a game changer. You know, in our lifetime, we have seen technologies that have become game changers internet was one of those fundamental aspects that allowed us to connect to each other in a virtual world. We're having this podcast today, because of the internet. And the internet was, was the hype. At one point, there were skeptics, they were people who said this will change the world. It didn't really change the world only because a lot of people said, Okay, this is how I want to connect. AI is, in my opinion going to be a similar technology where it allows people to connect to this sort of powerful platform in a way that our thinking or behavior or aspects of processing information and learning everything will change. And that will change businesses. So to answer the second part of your question, is it going to change jobs? Yes, it is going to change the way we conduct our jobs. It's not going to take away jobs, maybe but it is definitely going to change the way we all conduct businesses. So it is going to change our jobs in a certain way.

Kris: What technologies do you see having long-lasting impressions and changes for businesses going forward?

Prashanth: That's an interesting question. Because anyone and I feel when I predict technology, it gets obsolete immediately. It's just the nature of technology. Evolution is so fast that whatever you think is going to be the next big thing is already the thing of yesterday as such. But fundamentally, there are a couple of things that could be the flagpoles, if you will, in terms of where technologies are going to be the things of the future. If you look at the evolution of technology, and right from the day, when you had the mainframe computers today, with AI, all the conversations, deal with a couple of important things, the first and foremost data and converting that data to information that is actionable. And the way we process and analyze data, whether it's for business for humans, for people, whatever it is, it's changing. So from that standpoint, even if you take AI it is building context and intelligence on data. Some time ago, the whole big data conversation or data analytics conversation was also around that. So any technology that deals with making it easy to access information is going to be the key piece whether it is a visual aggregation of the information or gathering information from different sources or putting information into, a box, which is just a box, a magic box that you ask a question and you get an answer from sort of the thing, all of that. So the evolution of the next phase of technologies is going to be connecting the dots of this information and the other world becomes more connected. as our world becomes more and more active in sharing information. Today, information is very prevalent and available, the technologies that are better at doing that job and connecting the data and providing them with information are always going to be at the forefront. So that's why you talk about IoT, or connected factories, or self-driving cars, and all those things these days, because information about roads with the GPS system about all the things that are on the road with the camera, and that is all collated for you to have that self-driving car technology. So I think that's one of the flatboats. And today, that particular piece is around AI, data analytics, and visualization and all those aspects, right? The other technology, that is, again, a game changer is communication. Our communication has also kind of evolved, we're still communicating, I wouldn't say the same way, because I don't understand half the words that are used on the internet these days, and to say, all, but it's just very different. And the slags are very different and all of those pieces, but the way to communicate has evolved as well with the convenience of communication. And most people like to text rather than pick up the phone and call people these days because it's convenient to text. And similarly, that piece when you're communicating, it's whether it's with people, with the system, or with the world around you, that is also a place where it is going to change. The reason why Apple thought it was a good idea to release the VR technology right now is because they think that is going to be a good platform for the world's information to be collected and presented. And for you to communicate through that device. At this point in time. I'm a little, I would say skeptical about how efficient that will be right now. But I know that is the future in terms of how we interact. Even today, when you look at training, let's say for example, a machine operator or a maintenance worker, that technology is in use today because it all relays information to the real world so well that you can communicate in that device in terms of what is happening around you and with somebody in your ear talking you through what needs to be done all those pieces, right? So information and communication are always going to be the centerpiece of what technology does to the business to the world if you will, and those technologies are going to continue to evolve. And if you want to do anything in this space, those are the two areas I would say, Be focused on and bring that together.

And so much more…

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Connect with Erin on LinkedIn and visit http://www.earthlinginteractive.com for web-based solutions to your complex business problems!

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Connect with Kris on LinkedIn and visit www.genalpha.com for OEM and aftermarket digital solutions!