FINC 330 Hw + Disc ***Zeek the Geek***

Violetta:

1. From the site’s front page, access “IBM Research” (it changes from year to year, but it is in the “About IBM” at the bottom of the page). Choose one project from the list and describe in a paragraph or two what the project is and what resources it require.

Answer: Transforming the world is the best way to describe the development of computing and its impact both professionally and personally.  Antiquated thinking of technology almost made this revolution a failure because computers were left at offices and after hours work assignments were performed manually from home.  Challenging traditional views, companies such as Apple, Tandy, Atari, and Digital Research began a computing revolution and started putting them in the hands of people (Ibm.com, 2016).   At that time, IBM was a $23 billion operation with 337,000 employees.  William Lowe, Systems Manager for IBM Entry Level Systems met with CEO Frank Cary and asserted that IBM should purchase one of the companies making personal computers or begin building them to be sold with a price sticker of approximately $1500.  The project called “Chess” began with four dedicated resources: Don Estridge for design and development, Jack Sams for software, and H.L. Sparks for marketing, and Dave Bradley for interface code for the new machine.  The creation of IBMs version of the personal computer led to the use of parts from suppliers such as Microsoft and Intel.  Two years later, personal computers was a consumer phenomenon where IBM PCs were selling around the world at a rate of one very minute of every business day.  IBM transformed the world in the way people work and live today (Ibm.com, 2016).

2. Select a project from IBM’s recent research collaborations. Describe in a paragraph what this project is. 

Answer: The research collaboration between Cleveland Clinic and IBM is based on the concept of a new cognitive computing project which would allow ease of access between physicians, data, and electronic medical records (ERM).  IBM Research shared two logical computing technologies that can be used by Watson.  This form of innovation would allow physicians to make more knowledgeable, quicker, and precise assessments gleaned from ERMs.  This is known as the Watson Paths project and Watson ERM Assistant and both will serve Watson in the realm of health evaluations.  IBM scientists designed the technique to interact with health domain professionals in a user friendly manner and the Watson ERM Assistant project will allow physicians to discover vital data from patients’ medical records to enhance the quality and efficiency of care (Research.ibm.com, 2016) .  

3. Select a project from IBM’s recent academic collaborations. Describe in a paragraph what this project is.

Answer:  The University of South Carolina began an academic collaboration with IBM in an effort to provide IT applications services to both public and private sector corporations in North America.  The focus is on providing analytics and higher education solutions.  The University will leverage IBM’s technology to enhance tailored learning programs for its students.  This collaboration will allow the University to take advantage of IBM’s training, processes, and access to the state-of-the-art developments in information technology. As well, it is an opportunity for the University to attract and retain students (Sc.edu, 2016).

4. Go back to the IBM front page, find “Investor Relations” at the bottom of the page. Go to IBM’s most recent annual report. How much did IBM spend on research, development, and engineering in the most recent year? How did this compare with the previous year?

Answer: According the finance,  in 2015, IBM spent $5,247,000,000 in research development and engineering.  The company spent $5.4 milling in 2014 on RD&E in 2014.  Year-over-year, the percent change was a decline of 3.5% in 2015.  The annual report further revealed that RD&E expense in 2015 and 2014 were 6.4% and 5.9% of revenue respectively (Ibm.com, 2016). 

Eugene:

1&2- How African schools are using cognitive systems to help shape the future of education and recent research collaboration with African schools.

-As any veteran teacher will attest, students under-perform at school for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they’re not sitting close enough to the teacher to comprehend the lesson. Maybe they’re not getting support at home. Or maybe they’ve missed that one key class and just haven’t been able to catch up. In Africa’s poorer schools, there are even more factors to consider. Are there enough books? Is there proper electricity and sanitation? As we detail in the latest Wild Ducks podcast episode, Dr. Komminist “Kommy” Weldemariam, a research scientist at IBM Research – Africa, believes that by deploying cognitive, mobile, and analytics technologies in these poor districts, educators can create an early warning system to identify which schools – and even which students – are most at risk to fail. Weldemariam and his team have just launched a first-of-its-kind initiative in Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city. They’re developing and testing intelligent systems to capture data at more than 100 schools – collecting everything from class size and test grades to student health and safety. Our latest technology and education podcast shines a light on this project and explains how this initiative could point to the future of education everywhere.  You can hear all about this in the latest wild Ducks podcast. This episode’s Wild Duck, IBM scientist Komminist “Kommy” Weldemariam, is head of education initiatives at IBM Research – Africa’s lab in Nairobi. As a child, Weldemariam attended an Ethiopian school that didn’t have a computer or even a library. And yet, he’s gone on to great achievements. He was recently named a Next Einstein Fellow. Now he believes these same technologies can help develop an early warning system for educators to identify challenging learning environments like the one he grew up in, enabling teachers and administrators to intervene more quickly and help save kids at risk of failure. In Kenya, and in much of the developing world, a dearth of timely school’s data is a real problem for educators and students alike. Here, Weldemariam explains to Wild Ducks co-host Bernhard Warner how the project deploys cognitive, mobile, and analytics technologies in more than 100 schools in Kenya’s Mombasa County to help educators identify the factors that lead to underperformance among students, at the school level as well as across entire districts. Weldemariam’s team is comprised of research scientists, software engineers and developers. Here, Charity Wayua, an IBM research scientist, explains to journalist Bernhard Warner how a recent pilot program in a Nairobi school, utilizing Watson Cognitive Tutor, improved the classroom learning experience. Teachers got student-specific recommendations for future lessons while students got more personalized attention. Wayua says that putting Watson in the classroom was like giving the teacher an extra set of eyes to ensure that no child fell behind. IBM Research – Africa is based in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, which has become a hotbed for innovation, thanks to its mobile-centric culture. Kenya is the birthplace of both the open-source disaster-relief mapping system Ushahidi and M-PESA, the mobile payments app by Safaricom that has revolutionized retail banking. M-PESA — short for ‘mobile money’ in Swahili — was originally developed to help the “unbanked” send money home, but now almost everyone across Kenya uses it to make purchases, lend money and settle debts. Which makes the country a fitting place to launch a school’s initiative, utilizing cognitive, mobile and analytics systems to help improve classroom learning. “What we are doing here is trying to reverse the classic technology transfer where Africa inherits innovation from the West,” says Weldemariam. “We’re building something that can be exported to schools around the world.”

IBM Research – Africa is IBM’s 12th global research lab and the first industrial research facility on the continent of Africa. With facilities in Kenya and South Africa IBM Research – Africa is driving innovation by developing commercially-viable solutions to transform lives and spark new business opportunities in key areas such as water, agriculture, transportation, healthcare, financial inclusion, education, energy, security and e-government.

First announced by IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometty in 2012, the Nairobi facility was officially inaugurated by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta in November, 2013. The Nairobi facility is supported by the Kenyan ICT Authority.

The South African branch of IBM Research – Africa was announced in March 2015 and will be collocated with Wits University in the Tshimologong Precinct technology hub in Bramfontein, Johannesburg.  

IBM Research – Africa is actively engaging with Africa’s innovation ecosystem to kick start new business opportunities and ensure the full commercial viability of its solutions and services. Entrepreneurs, developers and business partners are a key part of IBM’s research programs and go-to-market strategy in Africa.

Employing some of the best scientists from around the world, many from the African diaspora, IBM Research is a key investor in skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Africa and is partnering with universities across the continent to develop and hire top talent.

3-IBM’s recent research academic collaboration with African schools:

IBM Research - Africa  Developing solutions in Africa, for Africa and the world

This week, IBM Research-Africa launched a new state-of-the-art facility – the THINKLab – in Nairobi, Kenya to transform the way the staff interact with clients and partners, and demonstrate hands-on innovation. The Nairobi THINKLab – one of a growing number of IBM facilities around the world – will allow clients and partners from across the Middle East and Africa region to gain hands-on experience of IBM’s latest cognitive, cloud, big data analytics and mobile technologies. Fitted with some of the most advanced interactive technologies, the THINKLab will provide IBM’s Africa-based researches with a stimulating environment to demonstrate the lab’s latest solutions in key areas such as education, healthcare, water management, public safety and financial inclusion. The facility will also help IBM’s scientists engage with community representatives – inviting them in to be part of the research and development process.

4- IBM “Investor Relations”

Our Solutions Are Cognitive Data is the world’s new natural resource, and it is transforming all industries and professions. IBM has been building and acquiring the capabilities necessary to lead in data and analytics, deepening our industry expertise and growing partnerships and ecosystems. Today, our data and analytics business is the industry leader, generating revenue of $18 billion in 2015. This is a strong and growing business— but its potential is actually much greater. That potential lies in the 80 percent of the world’s data that is unstructured: everything we encode in language—from textbooks and formulas to literature and conversation— plus all digital video, audio and images. This unstructured data has been essentially invisible to computers. They can capture, store and process it, but they cannot understand what it means. But with cognitive technology, we can now probe this “dark data.” Cognitive systems can ingest it all, and they can understand its meaning, through sensing and interaction. They can reason about it, generating hypotheses, arguments and recommendations. And unlike any computing system we have known, they are not programmed. Rather, they learn—from training by experts and from their own experience. In fact, they never stop learning.

2015 Performance The impact of the transformation is clear in our 2015 results. The strategic imperatives—Analytics, Cloud, Mobile, Social and Security—grew by 26 percent and generated $29 billion last year. As mentioned, that represented 35 percent of IBM’s total revenue at year end. Adjusted for the impact of currency and divestitures (as are all revenue results reported in this letter), Analytics revenue grew 16 percent for the year, to $18 billion. Mobile more than tripled for the second straight year. Security grew 12 percent. And Social was up 21 percent. Not only did total Cloud revenue increase by more than 50 percent, to $10 billion, making ours the largest cloud business in the world, but our cloud-delivered as-a-service revenue continued to grow, reaching $4.5 billion in 2015, with a year-end annual run rate of $5.3 billion. Even as we fueled these high-growth businesses, we continued to bring innovation to the businesses our clients have long valued and relied on. IBM Global Technology Services, which is increasingly injecting automation and cognition into our services delivery, grew both IBM’s strategic imperatives grew by 26 percent and generated $29 billion last year. That represented 35 percent of IBM’s total revenue. Revenue Growth Yr. / Analytics 16% Cloud 57% Mobile 250% Security 12% Social 21% Revenue growth rate is at constant currency and excludes divested businesses. Overlap in strategic imperatives primarily reflects solutions delivered via Cloud. Investment IBM prioritizes investments in research and development, capital and acquisitions, and those investments are increasingly directed toward strategic imperatives. 2015 Total Investment: $13 billion. IBM’s strategic imperatives grew by 26 percent and generated $29 billion last year. That represented 35 percent of IBM’s total revenue.