Pepsi Doing Technology and AI

Interesting look at Pepsi's Technology Advances

04/05/2023

Tech Transformation Podcast: PepsiCo’s Kate Garner On Consumer Insights’ Evolution

There may be no bigger priority for both retailers and consumer goods companies today than access to consumer insights, and PepsiCo has stood up its own data analytics practice known as Pepviz to seize this opportunity. In this episode of Tech Transformation, we’re talking with Kate Garner, SVP of marketing, demand accelerator, at PepsiCo about some of their latest findings, how the company's use of technology has evolved, and how it's helping them develop more collaborative retail relationships. 

Listen to learn: 

How the use of technology at PepsiCo has evolved over the last 20 years

How Pepviz is helping retailers leverage consumer insights for market share and revenue growth

How they share these insights across the PepsiCo organization 

How PepsiCo overcomes some of the challenges associated with data democratization

What’s next for Pepviz and what Garner sees as the future of retail

The potential of generative AI within consumer goods and retail

How PepsiCo’s use of technology has evolved: “From an insights perspective, we've gone from a world of deep longitudinal surveys, where you're getting a lot of stated purchase behavior, and moving more into a place where we're able to look at actual purchase behavior and link that then to get to that closed-loop measurement that's so critical, to be able to ensure we're delivering that return on investment. 

“And then taking it even a step further and getting down to individual store level. So when we think about the insights that we're able to attain, and transfer that then all the way down to an advantage that we have, which is having our sales associates in all the stores across the country, we’re able then to curate those insights in a very granular way to what's happening in their store.”

How they work with retailers: “We had a Midwestern retailer who was very interested in growing their carbonated soft drink business. And we were able to look across their footprint of stores, and first able to separate out where stores were excelling and where stores had opportunities. Then, within their footprint, we could look to seek and understand what are some of the differences? What are lookalike stores — and lookalike stores doesn’t necessarily mean that they're in close geographical proximity, but specifically, how do we look at the shoppers that are shopping that store? And then identify what's unique or differentiated about those stores, and how do we take the stores that are underperforming, build some of the insights and things that are happening within the stores with higher growth. 

“We were able to then go activate against those execution parameters. Exciting for the retailer, as exciting for us, we were able to deliver incremental growth for both of us, for the retailer to see a 16% lift in their carbonated soft drink business.”

How they leverage consumer insights across the company: “It's almost like a marketing campaign, and you need to break down the target audience into different personas. We have some within our organization who use this capability on a day-in and day-out basis, and so for those folks, we have training, we have webinars, we record them, we put them at their fingertips, and then we have experts, who would have an office-hour type capability to meet with some of our sales and category leaders to answer questions, all the way up to our senior executives, where we're looking to just curate and help inform them on the insights and the learnings.

"And so there, you'll see we have quarterly newsletters that we're putting into the inbox. If you go into Pepviz.com, you also can get those and sign up to see some of those newsletters. So really articulating for the marketplace what are the industry leading insights that we're seeing.”

The potential of generative AI in consumer goods and retail: “One of the areas that I see potential in, having led insights organizations here within PepsiCo, really migrating away from stated behavior. And so when I think about the ability for sentiment tracking, rather than just tracking words, being able to get into tone and understanding, or in search, and helping us articulate more clearly. Those are areas that excite me to think about how we experience those things differently and more nuanced. …

"I think that how generative AI takes off within the CPG and retail space will be dependent upon how they find solutions that connect to those territories of where we are already investing as an industry. So to the extent that they can tap into those areas and show progress in those spaces, I think it will take off quickly. Otherwise, it may be areas of the future.”   ... '

Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder and creator of Moore's Law, dies aged 94

Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder and creator of Moore's Law, dies aged 94

Published, 14 hours ago  in the BBC. 

Silicon Valley pioneer and philanthropist Gordon Moore has died aged 94 in Hawaii.

Mr Moore started working on semiconductors in the 1950s and co-founded the Intel Corporation.

He famously predicted that computer processing powers would double every year - later revised to every two - an insight known as Moore's Law.

That "law" became the bedrock for the computer processor industry and influenced the PC revolution.

Two decades before the computer revolution began, Moore wrote in a paper that integrated circuits would lead "to such wonders as home computers - or at least terminals connected to a central computer - automatic controls for automobiles, and personal portable communications equipment".

He observed, in the 1965 article, that thanks to technological improvements the number of transistors on microchips had roughly doubled every year since integrated circuits were invented a few years earlier.

His prediction that this would continue became known as Moore's Law, and it helped push chipmakers to target their research to make this come true.

After Moore's article was published, memory chips became more efficient and less expensive at an exponential rate. ...   '

Tech Shame?

Interesting Observation

Gen Z Overwhelmed by 'Tech Shame' at Work

Fortune, Chloe Berger, December 15, 2022

An HP survey of 10,000 office workers worldwide found Generation Z employees are most likely to feel technological frustration at work, with 20% of younger respondents feeling judged for having technology issues, versus one in 25 older-generation workers. The survey also found Gen Z employees to be 10 times more likely to feel shame when encountering such issues than those older than 40. HP's Debbie Irish said this "tech shame" might be related to an inability to afford better gear or Wi-Fi as senior co-workers can. Irish also said Gen Z employees "have less face-to-face time in the office than any other generation, and have limited access to senior employees, mentors, and even their bosses."   ... '

Big Ideas in Tech

 Nicely done,  Big Ideas in Tech for 2023: An a16z Omnibus     by Andreessen 

AI, machine & deep learning  bio + health  consumer  crypto & web3  ecommerce  enterprise & SaaS  fintech  gaming, social, and new media  mobile (& messaging)  online communities  big ideas  trends 2023

Table of contents:

Big ideas in consumer tech

Big ideas in bio + health

Big ideas in fintech

Big ideas in games

Big ideas in American Dynamism

Big ideas in enterprise

Big ideas in crypto  ... ' 

On How Not to Win a Tech Ware

Thoughtful points, more at the link

From ACM DEPARTMENTS

How Not to Win a Tech War      By Moshe Y. Vardi

Communications of the ACM, January 2023, Vol. 66 No. 1, Page 7   10.1145/3571077

CACM Senior Editor Moshe Y. Vardi

A paradox: for the U.S. to compete with China, the U.S. is using Chinese talent. But let's start from the beginning. In May 2022, I predicted a "tech war" between the U.S. and China. "If computing technology is viewed as strategic technology," I wrote, "then we may have to say goodbye to the research world in which we openly collaborated and openly published." The tech war has come faster than I personally would have predicted.

In early August 2022, the U.S. authorized USD280B in taxpayer money to subsidize American computer-chip companies and invest in technology research for the sake of "keeping America strong and innovative." Following that, in early October 2022, the U.S. imposed limits on semi-conductor exports to China, aimed at limiting China's ability to make advanced semiconductors. The White House issued sweeping restrictions on selling semiconductors and chip-making equipment to China, in an attempt to curb the country's access to critical technologies.

Critics have questioned both legs of this strategy. On one hand, an investment of USD52B is considered relatively small, considering that a single major Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer—TSMC—announced in 2022 new capital investments of more than USD40B. On the other hand, China has been a major market for the U.S. tech industry, and the growing separation between American and Chinese tech markets will also hurt U.S. companies.

But tech wars are ultimately won by innovation, which requires both financial and human capital. The U.S. benefited tremendously by being a magnet for worldwide talent. According to the 2021 Taulbee Surveyb of the Computing Research Association, approximately 65% of doctoral students in computing in North America are international students. My estimate is that this pool of international students is dominated by Chinese students. My own research program has been greatly enriched by my Chinese students. This means the technological competition with China is aided, to a significant degree, by Chinese students. Hence, the opening sentence of this column.

But while American universities are still eager to attract Chinese talent, several U.S. actions imply otherwise. In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the "China Initiative," reflecting the strategic priority of the U.S. in "countering Chinese national security threats." Yet several prosecution cases under the China Initiative have ended in acquittals. Chinese-origin and Chinese-descent scientists and students studying and working in the U.S. bore and continue to bear the brunt of the suspicion. A September 2022c report by the Asian-American Scholars Forum (AASF) pointed out that feeling the pressure of potential federal investigations since the launch of the China Initiative, Chinese-origin scientists in the U.S. now face higher incentives to leave the U.S. and lower incentives to apply for federal grants. Furthermore, it has recently been reportedd that the number of new Chinese students at U.S. colleges has plummeted from pre-pandemic levels.

A week after the AASF report was published, the U.S. National Academies issued a report entitled "Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage." The main point of that report is that maintaining U.S. global leadership in science and technology requires a greater focus on strengthening innovation, and not solely on restricting access to specific technologies, calling on the U.S. to strive to maximize the amount of work that can be appropriately performed in an open research environment.

The National Academies' report also called on the U.S. to develop policies and programs aimed at developing domestic research talent. But the domestic doctoral talent pipeline has been shriveling for decades. In the mid-1990s, David Goodstein, a CalTech physicist, wrote in a blog: "The best American students have proved their superior abilities by reading the handwriting on the wall and going into other lines of work instead of choosing graduate school … The humming machinery kept right on going, fed by ore imported from across the oceans … Foreign graduate students have, temporarily at least, rescued our way of life."  ... ' 

Law and Technology

Worth a read, NFT and more.

These Are Not the Apes You Are Looking For

By Andres Guadamuz

Communications of the ACM, September 2022, Vol. 65 No. 9, Pages 20-22    10.1145/3548761

Imagine you want to stream some music. On today's Web, you would sign up for a service such as Spotify or Apple Music. These platforms have obtained copyright licenses from record companies and artists, and they offer you that music for a monthly subscription. The music streaming services are centralized intermediaries. They exist to connect musicians and fans, and in exchange they take a substantial cut of the money.

But a growing number of technology enthusiasts have a different vision, which they call Web3. To them, it "represents the next phase of the Internet and, perhaps, of organizing society.'a One of the pillars of the Web3 vision is tokenization: using representing ownership of different assets using cryptographic tokens that can be exchanged on a blockchain or other decentralized system. Only the person who knows the private key associated with a token can use or transfer it. A token can be used to represent anything, from frequent-flyer miles to hotel reservations. By transferring a token from user to user, it can record who owns an associated asset.

In a Web3 world, your music experience would be mediated not by Spotify but by tokens. Instead of signing up for a music service, you would buy a token directly from the artist. The token would represent your right to listen to the music. The token's cryptography would be tied directly into the digital rights management protecting the music, so that only token owners would be able to listen. In other words, the token living on a decentralized blockchain would let you and the artist automatically cut out the middlemen like Spotify, and maybe even record companies.

One of the sectors receiving particularly intense Web3 interest and investment is the creative industries. In this area, the tokenization push is being driven by non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptographic tokens that represent a unique asset. One banana is pretty much like any other banana, but a Picasso portrait and an Ai Weiwei sculpture are radically different. The tokens representing them are not interchangeable, or fungible, hence the name.

The most famous NFT project is the Bored Ape Yacht Club, whose collection of "Bored Ape" NFTs have been selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Each of the 9,999 Bored Ape NFTs consists of a token on the Ethereum blockchain linked to a JPEG cartoon drawing of an ape. The JPEGs were procedurally generated with different combinations of traits, including jackets, hats, and facial expressions. While they all resemble each other, each individual Bored Ape is unique, a bit like the different cards in a trading-card set

There is currently a push to move the economy in the direction of a wider use of tokens, and this is being driven mostly by a combination of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and crypto-currency holders and investors. If the funders, developers, and artists pushing NFTs and Web3 get their way, the media landscape will look very different from what it looks like now.

This might sound like a great idea, but only until you start looking in detail at how it would actually work. As soon as you do, there are serious problems at every practical level.  .... ' 

Coffee Tech Overview

 Space I worked in for years, a brief  intro in the BBC

The tech helping to bring you your morning coffee,  By Luana Ferreira

Business reporter, BrazilFor an estimated one billion people around the world drinking coffee is a daily regime.

Yet what many coffee lovers might not know is that they are often drinking a brew made, at least in part, from Brazilian beans.

"Brazilian beans have popular characteristics, and are known for their body and sweetness," says Christiano Borges, boss of the country's largest grower, Ipanema Coffees.

"Therefore, many coffee blends in the world use our coffee as a base."

Brazil is far and away the world's largest grower of coffee beans. It accounts for more than one third of all global supplies, or 37% in 2020, to be exact. In second place is Vietnam with 17% of supplies.

Some 70% of Brazil's coffee plants are the highly-priced arabica species, used in fresh coffee. The remaining 30% are robusta, which is used primarily for instant coffee.  ... 

Beware Allure of Training Tech

 As it says, context matters a great deal when training. Will the VR actually change results? 

Beware the allure of training technology   By Tim Marler in Defense News

The allure of training technology can often overshadow its value. Today, virtual reality, or VR, is a hot topic in the military training community, but training tools must be developed and selected according to their anticipated use. Context matters, and sometimes the best and most cost-effective training tool may just be a book.

While VR offers many benefits, the Department or Defense could seek to ensure that virtual training content derives from operational needs, integrates with existing processes and curricula, and is validated. Furthermore, this process could be assessed and refined continuously because although we cannot predict the future of technology, we can be confident that what we need and what we want will change.

The United States military has always derived great benefit from novel technological advances, and today is no exception. Rapid acquisition and innovation are focal points for the DoD. This focus extends to training as well, where emerging technologies can present many opportunities. But too often the tie from various capabilities to actual training objectives can be tenuous at best.

Within the training arena, there is now considerable focus on virtual reality and augmented reality. VR involves a user being completely immersed in a virtual environment, and AR involves overlaying virtual entities on real items. The Army, for example, is developing the Integrated Visual Augmentation System that will allow soldiers to see what combat vehicles see, have 3D terrain maps projected onto their real field of view and enable other capabilities for increased situational awareness.

In addition, most of the services are developing aspects of live, virtual and constructive, or LVC, capabilities that can, for example, allow pilots in real jets (live) to train with pilots in flight simulators (virtual) in different locations, all interacting with computer-based (constructive) representations of adversary jets ..... ' 

Predicting the Next Big Company in Tech

Loosely involved in such a move, what can best drive to succeed?  Here some thoughts

Predicting the next big company in tech  in Venturebeat

The past 40 years in tech have been more dynamic and innovative than any other 40 years in history. The pace of innovation has accelerated, and access to tech and capital has made for a highly active startup world. Every company is pitching the next great idea, but with thousands upon thousands of companies scrambling to make it big, how do you identify who will be the winners?  

I’ve spent the last four decades in tech, starting in sales and then later serving as a leader, investor, advisor, and board member at various software companies, VC firms, and cybersecurity startups. I can say with experience that picking the up-and-comer likely to make the biggest impact is a challenging undertaking. 

For a company is going to win and win big, there must be a real, unique business case.  

A few indicators can suggest that a company offers real value and might be on its way to massive success. Whether you seek to monitor the competition, join a new company, form a partnership, or identify the enterprise to emulate, the following tips can help you identify those companies that provide value.  

Look at the TAM  

Looking at the Total Addressable Market (TAM) allows you to objectively quantify a company’s potential for growth. If the market is saturated with an incalculable number of competitors, then a company entering that market is at a disadvantage. On the other hand, if a startup is entering a market with a compelling product to solve a challenge that no others — or very few others — are solving, there is a higher chance of market leadership. It’s common sense and a basic rule of economics: Early market leaders have an incredible advantage. The size of the TAM is also crucial, but make sure you consider both the current size and the potential size.   .... ' 

Pentagon Needs More Nerds

 (In another time,  between some other wars, I was a nerd at the Pentagon.  Even now with much smarter devices, we need more hard and software, even beyond the AI enablement.

from ACM OPINION

To Win the Next War, the Pentagon Needs Nerds     By Wired, May 5, 2022

 When Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) turned to a team of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) experts to make sense of an avalanche of information about the conflict. These tech experts crafted code and ML algorithms, creating systems that are "especially valuable for synthesizing the complex logistics picture," said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks in a recent interview.

Hicks says this helps prove a point that she and others have been making within the Pentagon for some time—that technology is fundamentally changing the nature of war, and the U.S. needs to adapt in order to maintain its edge.   However, a 2019 report commissioned by the Defense Innovation Board, warns that software and its development has become a crucial strategic issue for the U.S. military. The board also notes that the DoD cannot typically compete with the salaries tech companies offer software developers. .... 

There are those—inside and outside of the Pentagon—who worry that the U.S. is ill-equipped to adapt to the challenges presented by war in the future.  ...

Full Article.

Real Direction of Automotive Tech

Real Direction of Automotive Technology?

EVs Are on the Way, But Can AVs Keep Up?  In SupplyChainBrain

Advances in automotive technology aim to bring an end to the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. Will the human driver be jettisoned along with it?

Electric vehicles (EVs) are well on their way to dominating the auto market. The Biden administration has set a target of zero-emission vehicles accounting for half of U.S. new car sales by 2030. And at least a quarter of global Fortune 500 companies have already signed on to that goal.

U.S. transportation policy views EVs as a plus in two distinct areas: the environment and social equity, according to attorney Melody Drummond Hansen, a member of the Automated & Connected Vehicle Group of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. “You’ll see a gold rush in the U.S. in the next several years,” she says, “as people take advantage of investments available at the federal and state level for infrastructure for EVs.”

... According to attorney Melody Drummond Hansen, a member of the Automated & Connected Vehicle Group of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. “You’ll see a gold rush in the U.S. in the next several years,” she says, “as people take advantage of investments available at the federal and state level for infrastructure for EVs.” .... 

Young People Get Their Knowledge of Tech From TV, Not School

Young People Get Their Knowledge of Tech Careers From TV, Not School

ZDNet, Liam Tung, August 6, 2021

(Note this is about careers, not the tech itself,   Assume its better defined in the Accenture)

A survey of 1,000 16- to 21-year-olds in the U.K. by consultancy Accenture found movies, TV, and social media—not school—are their main source of knowledge about technology careers. Social media was the leading source for respondents (31%) compared to parents (29%) and teachers (24%), while TV and film were cited by 27% and school by 19%. Meanwhile, 44% of young women said they had good digital skills, versus 40% of young men; yet fewer than 25% felt confident about obtaining a tech job. Accenture's Shaheen Sayed said this "indicates a worrying disconnect between young people, particularly girls, and a changing jobs market." Respondents interested in tech jobs said they would most likely pursue careers in artificial intelligence, data analytics, and cybersecurity, which are the top three subjects in online tech media for now.

From CIS: Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law

Very good piece from Stanford Law on technology. Below intro and beyond.

From:  The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.

PRIVACY, MIDDLEWARE, AND INTEROPERABILITY: CAN TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS, INCLUDING BLOCKCHAIN, HELP US AVOID HARD TRADEOFFS?

By Daphne Keller on August 23, 2021 at 7:01 am

Interoperability and distributed content moderation models have tremendous promise. They could temper major platforms’ power over public discourse, introducing both more economic competition and more diverse and pluralistic spaces for online speech. But these models -- which I will reductively refer to as “middleware,” following Francis Fukuyama’s coinage -- also raise a number of as-yet-unresolved problems. As I explained in this short piece, one of the hardest problems involves privacy: When a user opts in to a new service, can she give that service permission to process other people’s data and content? 

This post examines some possible technical solutions to protect privacy while enabling interoperability or distributed content moderation. It focuses in part on blockchain technologies, and draws on recent conversations with a number of seriously smart people about possible technical designs. My takeaway is that there is no magic bullet. We can’t have perfect privacy and optimize for platform interoperability or middleware. But blockchain technologies, and some other technical design approaches, can whittle away at the problem. The rest of this post examines ways to do that.   

Note: This post starts from a pretty high level of wonkiness, and then gets wonkier. If you’re new to the “middleware” topic, my short take on why it matters and why it’s hard are here; Cory Doctorow and I also had a great live discussion about it here. If you’re a blockchain maven and spot any mistakes, they are definitely mine and not the fault of the experts I talked to. 

This post doesn’t run down every possible permutation of the ideas it discusses, and it is un-wonkily reductive about at least three complicated things. (1) It uses the term “middleware” very loosely, as a way to lump together models including platform-to-platform interoperability, protocols not platforms, Magic APIs, and federated systems like Mastodon. (2) It elides differences between real blockchain technologies, describing a hypothetical a version (perhaps most similar to Project Liberty) optimized for Middleware. (3) It simplifies the kinds of user data and content used by social networks.  

OK, here we go.

What Blockchain Can Do

As a social media user, blockchain technologies could provide me with the following:

1.  An authenticatable identity that I control and can use to log in or validate my identity across multiple services. 

2.  A social graph linking my identity to other people’s similarly authenticated identities (meaning I control a “contact list” and decide when and how other people or services can access it). 

3.  For purposes of Middleware, a copy of every piece of content I post. This doesn’t have to be blockchain-linked -- it could just be stored on a physical device I control. But the content could be stored subject to my control as the blockchain-authenticated user, or in principle even stored on-chain (though then it couldn’t be deleted). To be useful for Middleware, this content would need to be kept in a format usable by any platform or Middleware provider. (This is quite hard to do, in practice). For each item of content, it could include a record of which service I shared it with and which contacts from my social graph could see it on that service.  

The Problem with Sharing Other People’s Data

Suppose three friends -- Ann, Balaji, and Carlos -- all have the set-up described above. Each has a blockchain-linked identity, a blockchain-linked social graph listing one another as contacts, and a controlled copy of all their posted content. They are currently friends on Facebook.  .... ' 

Why Investing in Technology Is No Longer a Choice

 Insightful  thoughts by Bain & Company, with good graphics.

Why Investing in Technology Is No Longer a Choice

In a rapidly changing business climate, our survey finds that only 14% of businesses are making the most of technology to stay ahead of the game. Here’s how the rest can catch up.

By Vishy Padmanabhan and Lauren Brom  .... ' 

Rescue with Technology

 Have noted this trend, is moving quickly.   Much more at the link.

Technology to the Rescue, By Samuel Greengard, Commissioned by CACM Staff,  August 31, 2021

In the aftermath of a major flood, mudslide, earthquake, mine collapse, shipwreck or structural failure, first responders must move quickly—but also must tread carefully. In many cases, it is difficult to spot survivors in rubble and debris, and working conditions can range from challenging to extraordinarily dangerous.

Although there is no simple fix, robotic devices and sensing systems are beginning to fly, creep, crawl, and otherwise locomote into the physical world. Using advanced sound detection systems, cameras, infrared, biosensors, and other equipment, researchers are engineering robotic devices that can aid first responders and take search and rescue into the digital age.

Says Timothy Chung, program manager in the Tactical Technology Office at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), "Robots can provide insights that save lives and deliver other critical information across a spectrum of emergency situations—including places where lighting and breathing are challenges." ...

Using advanced sound detection systems, cameras, infrared, biosensors, and other equipment, researchers are engineering robotic devices that can aid first responders and take search and rescue into the digital age.  ...    Credit: DARPA   ... 

Spy Agencies look to Science

When there are no direct solutions, look to emerging tech.  But do they have the same goals?   Same limitations? 

Spy Agencies Turn to Scientists as They Wrestle With Mysteries

By The New York Times via CACM   July 9, 2021

The nation's intelligence agencies are looking for ways to increase their expertise in a range of scientific disciplines as they struggle to answer unexplained questions — about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, unidentified phenomenon observed by Navy pilots, and mysterious health ailments affecting spies and diplomats around the world.

Traditional spycraft has failed to make significant progress on those high-profile inquiries, and many officials have grown convinced that they require a better marriage of intelligence gathering and scientific examination.

Intelligence officials in the Biden administration came into office pledging to work on areas traditionally dominated by science, like studying the national security implications of climate change and future pandemics. But as the other issues have cropped up, the spy agencies have had to confront questions that are as much scientific mysteries as they are challenges of traditional intelligence collection.

The White House has given the intelligence community until later this summer to report the results of a deep dive into the origins of the coronavirus, including an examination of the theory that it was accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab studying the virus as well as the prevailing view that it was transmitted from animals to humans outside a lab.

In the NYT

McKinsey: Trends in Tech

Well done overview:

The top trends in tech

Which technologies have the most momentum in an accelerating world? We identified the trends that matter most

The top trends in tech

Which technologies have the most momentum in an accelerating world? We identified the trends that matter most.

McKinsey tech trends index

Applied 

AI

Next-generation computing

Trust architecture

Distributed infrastructure

Future of connectivity

Future of programming

Next-level process automation and virtualization

Bio Revolution

Future of clean  technologies

Nanomaterials

As all things digital continue to accelerate, which technology trends matter most for companies and executives? To answer that question, we developed a unique methodology to identify the ten trends most relevant to competitive advantage and technology investments. 

These trends may not represent the coolest, most bleeding-edge technologies. But they’re the ones drawing the most venture money, producing the most patent filings, and generating the biggest implications for how and where to compete and the capabilities you need to accelerate performance. 

Unifying and underlying them all is the combinatorial effect of massively faster computation propelling new convergences between technologies; startling breakthroughs in health and materials sciences; an array of new product and service functionalities; and a strong foundation for the reinvention of companies, markets, industries, and sectors   .... " 

Algorithmic Impact Assessments

Welcome  to Algorithmic Impact Assessments.  I should note that I have done optimization and statistical models for decades, and this has very, very rarely come up.   And then only when included in a risk analysis that indicated potential errors being made.   Will all business process be under detailed scrutiny?    Article linked to below is interesting.

Assembling Accountability, from the Ground Up     in  Point.datasociety.net

Algorithmic impact assessments should leverage diverse expertise & complex histories

By Emanuel Moss, Ranjit Singh, Elizabeth Anne Watkins, and Jacob Metcalf

By now, it is a tired trope: Sen. Orrin Hatch asking Mark Zuckerberg how Facebook makes money. Zuckerberg replying with a wry “Senator, we run ads.” Another congressperson grilling Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, about the Apple iPhone, made by Apple.

Lawmakers, it is said, don’t understand technology well enough to regulate it. They are too old. They are out of touch. They have disinvested from staff and other experts that could help them understand it. And while all those criticisms may be true, why should we expect our lawmakers to become individual experts on every challenge facing society? There are advocacy groups, community activists, forensic technologists, thoughtful developers, and critical scholars who have devoted their careers to building expertise on these issues. Given the burgeoning influence of algorithmic systems over social affairs, and an increasing awareness of the harmful impacts of these powerful systems, we are at a moment in which complex sociotechnical systems require robust, adaptable regulation — and legislatures and regulatory bodies are drafting new rules.

Our new report Assembling Accountability  demonstrates a pressing need to establish algorithmic impact assessment practices from the ground up, which requires cultivating and synthesizing a broad consensus of expertise from industry, scholars, and public interest advocates, including people from affected communities.  ... ' 

Top Supply Chain Tech Trends

Some good thoughts on tech trends in supply chain.

Gartner Reveals Top 8 Supply Chain Technology Trends  in SDCExec

Gartner has identified the top eight supply chain technology themes for 2021, which were selected for their transformational potential and their ability to foster operational resiliency across the greater supply chain.

By Mackenna Moralez, Gartner Inc.

Gartner has identified the top eight supply chain technology themes for 2021, which were selected for their transformational potential and their ability to foster operational resiliency across the greater supply chain.

The top supply chain technology themes, per Gartner, are:

Hyperautomation

Digital Supply Chain Twin

Immersive Experience and Applications

Edge Ecosystems

Supply Chain Security

Environmental Social Governance

Embedded AI and Analytics

Augmented Data Intelligence

“This year, we’ve decided to focus on broader, overarching technology themes rather than individual technologies,” said Christian Titze, vice president analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice. “This is because innovative technologies are often combined together in order to solve specific supply chain business problems.”   ... ' 

Technology Will Create Many Jobs, Can we fill them?

The considerable challenge.   Adaptable workers, processes and systems will be required.

Technology Will Create Millions of Jobs. The Problem Will Be to Find Workers to Fill Them

ZDNet, Daphne Leprince-Ringuet, March 19, 2021

Economic analysis by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) indicates that new technologies will create tens of millions of jobs by 2030, but are unlikely to offset job losses from automation over the same period. Models of prospective changes in labor supply and demand in Germany, Australia, and the U.S. forecast that the next decade's job losses will be matched by even greater job creation. BCG's Miguel Carrasco said, "It is unrealistic to expect perfect exchangeability—not all of the surplus capacity in the workforce can be redeployed to meet new or growing demand." Occupations facing the biggest shortages include computer-related professions and jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math. BCG recommends aggressively upskilling and retraining the workforce, to ensure the timely fulfillment of demand for talent. ... '