The medical needs of developing countries are staggering and come in many shapes and sizes. The trouble is the real issues can only be understood once an individual or organization gets involved. About 10 years ago, our organization was routinely shipping medical supplies to hard-to-reach places. But what we found was that in many cases there were no hospitals to receive the supplies. We overcame this challenge by adapting the shipping containers used to move goods internationally into portable clinics outfitted with supplies and laptops. Once we were “on the ground” and learned more about the healthcare systems in countries such as Kenya, we found that even where there was an existing brick-and-mortar hospital, the medical software in place wasn’t really compatible with local needs. This was for two reasons: either it was too complex or it was not designed to tolerate the frequent Internet service gaps or disruptions that are common in developing regions.
Monthly Archives: December 2013
IoT 2014: Tiny Sensors, Open APIs and Hybrid Clouds
Throughout 2013 most senior executives have been exposed to the key emerging business technology trends. During 2014, you’re going to see and hear a lot more about the Internet of Things (IoT) — and the impact will reach just about every industry and all the major markets within the Global Networked Economy.
Let’s consider the forward-looking outlook, from a leading industry analyst. International Data Corporation (IDC) recently offered their predictions for the coming year.
“The 3rd Platform’s impact was felt throughout the ICT industry in 2013 as a high-profile CEO lost his job, a major IT player went private, numerous vendors endured cash cow stagnation, and billion-dollar bets were placed on new technologies,” said Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst at IDC.
The ASEAN ICT Challenge
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations – known as ASEAN – comprises 10 nations with a combined population of 600 million people and total GDP of $3.5 trillion.
The population is about twice that of the US, with a total economy twice that of India.
ASEAN is headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia, but strives to be unstintingly fair in the distribution of its events, programs, and emphasis. The ASEAN region covers a range of language, religion, governments, and culture that is breathtaking in its scope.
Yet its members’ national leaders seem uniform in their commitment to regional cooperation and peace. This can put the association at occasional odds with Western powers when it treats Myanmar (former Burma) with the same consideration as, say, the Philippines.
We’ve been able to produce rankings for eight of the ASEAN nations in our research: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. We’re missingly only Brunei and Myanmar at this point.
Leaders
Among the ASEAN nations, Vietnam ranks among the Top 10 in our overall global rankings, Singapore among the Top 25. They are joined by the Philippines in our Top 25 global measuremnt of raw potential.
In our “Goldilocks” rankings, which seek to determine the Top 25 ICT environments that are growing just right (neither too hot nor too cold), we find Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand.
So we’ve found positive measures in each of the eight countries we’ve researched. There are clear, often severe challenges in most of these places, of course. We never want to minimize the difficulty of addressing those challenges.
Wide Range
There is also a wide range of ICT development throughout the region, from Singapore’s 30Mb average bandwidth to less than 2Mb in the Philippines, and Singapore’s 75% Internet connectivity to Cambodia’s 3.1%. Average income ranges across 1.7 magnitudes, as does the relative cost of living.
With our relative approach to analyzing ICT environments, we find that there are hopeful signs throughout the ASEAN nations. For example, cloud computing is a big topic in the social- and mobile-driven cultures of the Philippines and Indonesia; in Laos, where abundant hydroelectric power is drawing investment in a place ripe for new datacenters; in cyber-centric Malaysia; etc.
SMAC
In response, I’m working with local firms throughout the ASEAN region to develop a SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud) Seminar Series in 2014. We’ve already scheduled our first event in Manila on April 24.
I’m also working to link our ASEAN series with a major cloud event in Beijing March 27-28, and an emerging user-driven Cloud APAC organization. Tweet me for details!
The ASEAN ICT Challenge
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations – known as ASEAN – comprises 10 nations with a combined population of 600 million people and total GDP of $3.5 trillion.
The population is about twice that of the US, with a total economy twice that of India.
ASEAN is headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia, but strives to be unstintingly fair in the distribution of its events, programs, and emphasis. The ASEAN region covers a range of language, religion, governments, and culture that is breathtaking in its scope.
Yet its members’ national leaders seem uniform in their commitment to regional cooperation and peace. This can put the association at occasional odds with Western powers when it treats Myanmar (former Burma) with the same consideration as, say, the Philippines.
We’ve been able to produce rankings for eight of the ASEAN nations in our research: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. We’re missingly only Brunei and Myanmar at this point.
Leaders
Among the ASEAN nations, Vietnam ranks among the Top 10 in our overall global rankings, Singapore among the Top 25. They are joined by the Philippines in our Top 25 global measuremnt of raw potential.
In our “Goldilocks” rankings, which seek to determine the Top 25 ICT environments that are growing just right (neither too hot nor too cold), we find Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand.
So we’ve found positive measures in each of the eight countries we’ve researched. There are clear, often severe challenges in most of these places, of course. We never want to minimize the difficulty of addressing those challenges.
Wide Range
There is also a wide range of ICT development throughout the region, from Singapore’s 30Mb average bandwidth to less than 2Mb in the Philippines, and Singapore’s 75% Internet connectivity to Cambodia’s 3.1%. Average income ranges across 1.7 magnitudes, as does the relative cost of living.
With our relative approach to analyzing ICT environments, we find that there are hopeful signs throughout the ASEAN nations. For example, cloud computing is a big topic in the social- and mobile-driven cultures of the Philippines and Indonesia; in Laos, where abundant hydroelectric power is drawing investment in a place ripe for new datacenters; in cyber-centric Malaysia; etc.
SMAC
In response, I’m working with local firms throughout the ASEAN region to develop a SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud) Seminar Series in 2014. We’ve already scheduled our first event in Manila on April 24.
I’m also working to link our ASEAN series with a major cloud event in Beijing March 27-28, and an emerging user-driven Cloud APAC organization. Tweet me for details!
Security in Fax: Minimizing Breaches and Compliance Risks
Enterprises that rely heavily on fax, view regulatory compliance as a major business component. Non-compliance issues that arise from security breaches and other forms of information leakage often result in substantial regulatory penalties, both civil and criminal. As government regulations regarding information security evolve, the need to align fax systems with compliance mandates becomes increasingly critical.
This whitepaper addresses regulatory compliance within fax communications and the steps enterprises can take to strategically leverage cloud technology in order to avoid security breaches and compliance risks.
Cloud Privacy and Security in the Age of Data Breaches and Surveillance
It’s hard to read or listen to the news without hearing concerns about protecting sensitive data. Whether it is providing security for payment card/banking information or maintaining privacy from cyber surveillance – governmental and otherwise.
Edward Snowden was back in the news last week when The Guardian revealed that the GCHQ and NSA targeted charities, Germany, the Israeli PM and EU chief on their surveillance list. These ongoing revelations have many organizations concerned about the privacy of customer data and other sensitive business information being put in the cloud.
As I wrote on our PerspecSys blog last week, the implications of the massive data breach at Target could be enormous. Information associated with the crime is still coming out including Fox News reporting yesterday that credit and debit card accounts stolen have reportedly flooded underground black markets.
Cloud Privacy and Security in the Age of Data Breaches and Surveillance
It’s hard to read or listen to the news without hearing concerns about protecting sensitive data. Whether it is providing security for payment card/banking information or maintaining privacy from cyber surveillance – governmental and otherwise.
Edward Snowden was back in the news last week when The Guardian revealed that the GCHQ and NSA targeted charities, Germany, the Israeli PM and EU chief on their surveillance list. These ongoing revelations have many organizations concerned about the privacy of customer data and other sensitive business information being put in the cloud.
As I wrote on our PerspecSys blog last week, the implications of the massive data breach at Target could be enormous. Information associated with the crime is still coming out including Fox News reporting yesterday that credit and debit card accounts stolen have reportedly flooded underground black markets.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Network Security
“AccelOps provides analytics driven IT operations management for cloud, virtualize infrastructure, and client-server environments,” explained Flint Brenton, president and CEO of AccelOps, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
South Sudan Violence Obscures ICT Progress
South Sudan is the world’s newest nation, created after a violent struggle, and one that now appears primed for more violence. Once again, the baser instincts of us human beings may trump our nobler nature.
More than 2 milliion people died in South Sudan’s fight for independence, an astonishing number. Imagine half a million people murdered in New York Ciry or London and you get the idea of the scale of this slaughter.
Yet the area is far from hopeless when it comes to ICT. We have not yet been able to break out specific figures for South Sudan, but we were able to include Sudan in our research with relevant figures before the nation broke into its present two pieces.
Our research encompasses 102 nations, and strives to determine relative progress with ICT infrastructure. We integrate several socio-economic and technology measures into our unique algorithms. Our approach gives developing nations of the world a chance to be compared on a “pound-for-pound” basis with developed nations, and can uncover diamonds in the rough in developing regions.
Sudan and South Sudan may be among those diamonds in the rough. Although Sudan finihsed 95th out of the 102 nations we survey with the information we were able to use, it showed a lot more promise when we focused more heavily on technology measures and less on socio-economic measures.
In fact, Sudan cracked our Global Top 20 in terms of potential, mostly due to having broader Internet access than expected – higher than better-known emerging starts Ghana and Senegal, for example.
We understand the danger of minimizing the socio-economic factors. After all, if a nation is simply too dangerous to visit, let alone consider as a place to invest, why even mention it?
Our approach has a heavy measure of caveat emptor – we assume that serious people have a good grasp of the risks involved in traveling to and doing businesss in any nation – and we don’t try to predict short-term economic performance. We do believe that over the long term, those countries with the most dynamic relative ICT infrastructures will be successful, as will those who invest in them.
Sudan and South Sudan have a combined population of about 48 million people, and sit in proximity to emerging East Africa, to Egypt, and to the Gulf states. If only political leaders there could lift their heads, stop focusing on the perceived enemies at hand, and take a longer view, they could truly improve the lives of their people. Our research says this, I say this, and I can hope for the day when it’s safe for me to visit Joba and environs.
South Sudan Violence Obscures ICT Progress
South Sudan is the world’s newest nation, created after a violent struggle, and one that now appears primed for more violence. Once again, the baser instincts of us human beings may trump our nobler nature.
More than 2 milliion people died in South Sudan’s fight for independence, an astonishing number. Imagine half a million people murdered in New York Ciry or London and you get the idea of the scale of this slaughter.
Yet the area is far from hopeless when it comes to ICT. We have not yet been able to break out specific figures for South Sudan, but we were able to include Sudan in our research with relevant figures before the nation broke into its present two pieces.
Our research encompasses 102 nations, and strives to determine relative progress with ICT infrastructure. We integrate several socio-economic and technology measures into our unique algorithms. Our approach gives developing nations of the world a chance to be compared on a “pound-for-pound” basis with developed nations, and can uncover diamonds in the rough in developing regions.
Sudan and South Sudan may be among those diamonds in the rough. Although Sudan finihsed 95th out of the 102 nations we survey with the information we were able to use, it showed a lot more promise when we focused more heavily on technology measures and less on socio-economic measures.
In fact, Sudan cracked our Global Top 20 in terms of potential, mostly due to having broader Internet access than expected – higher than better-known emerging starts Ghana and Senegal, for example.
We understand the danger of minimizing the socio-economic factors. After all, if a nation is simply too dangerous to visit, let alone consider as a place to invest, why even mention it?
Our approach has a heavy measure of caveat emptor – we assume that serious people have a good grasp of the risks involved in traveling to and doing businesss in any nation – and we don’t try to predict short-term economic performance. We do believe that over the long term, those countries with the most dynamic relative ICT infrastructures will be successful, as will those who invest in them.
Sudan and South Sudan have a combined population of about 48 million people, and sit in proximity to emerging East Africa, to Egypt, and to the Gulf states. If only political leaders there could lift their heads, stop focusing on the perceived enemies at hand, and take a longer view, they could truly improve the lives of their people. Our research says this, I say this, and I can hope for the day when it’s safe for me to visit Joba and environs.