Greenpeace has been investigating the immoral and illegal e-waste dumping in developing countries since 2002. Here are some videos from E-waste. While we all advocate for more IT, at least students of BMGT 301-SG93 understand the sensitive issue of e-waste vis. a vis. more use of IT. Here are some videos from Greenpeace. Some are heart touching !
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Here - I start blogging again - Thanks - Class SG 93-Spring 2010
" Why did you stop blogging ? " - asked my students of BMGT 301 course.
" ....HHmmmmm"- - well, I did not have a good answer to give them. So I excused myself by saying that I am busy in other things. However, that led me to think---why not blog again.
I gave an example of blogging on healthcare and IT in the class. The blog URL is here. Just for the purpose of some illustration - for the readers-who-know-whom-it-is-for:
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/ (Without link to URL)
Health Care Blog ( With link to URL)
Being IT Savvy - Peter Weill
IT is growing in organizations, there is no doubt about it. IT diffusion is associated with the concerns of competition, return on investments, resourcing, offshoring strategies and expectations from IT by business. Almost all enterprises, all enterprises are undergoing the transformation, with short and long term plans to roll out IT strategy. What is the view of leaders on the IT strategy? IT is an asset or a liability? IT is creating platforms or dissolving them? IT is bringing people together, or disconnecting physical space? These are certainly the dilemma and thoughts to ponder with as we go on being IT savvy in organizations. .
In a nice interview in the WSJ of MIT’s Peter Weill on IT Savvy talks about some of the above points. In his recent book, co-authored with Jeanne Ross. Peter reiterates some of the issues that I raise here.
Some excerpts from the interviews :
BI:Your newest book is about IT-savvy companies. How do you define IT savvy?
Peter: IT-savvy companies make information technology a strategic asset. The opposite of a strategic asset, of course, is a strategic liability. And there are many companies who feel their IT is a strategic liability. In those companies, the IT landscape is siloed, expensive and slow to change, and managers can't get the data they want.
IT-savvy companies are just the opposite. They use their technology not only to reduce costs today by standardizing and digitizing their core processes, but the information they summarize from that gives them ideas about where to innovate in the future. A third element is that IT-savvy companies use their digital platform to collaborate with other companies in their ecosystem of customers and suppliers.
So, IT-savvy companies are not just about savvy IT departments. It's about the whole company thinking digitally...........IT-savvy companies are 21% more profitable than non-IT-savvy companies.
The book also covers operating model, revamping IT funding model, allocating decision rights and accountability, driving value from IT and leading an IT Savvy firm. Highly recommended !
Some salient points from the book :
- Stop thinking about IT as a set of solutions and start thinking about integration and standardization.
- IT Savvy firms have 20% higher margins than their competitors.
- An operating model is a pre-requisite before committing sound investments in IT
- IT funding is important, as systems become the firm's legacy that influence, constrain or dictate how business processes are performed.
- Stop thinking about IT as a set of solutions and start thinking about integration and standardization.
- IT Savvy firms have 20% higher margins than their competitors.
- An operating model is a pre-requisite before committing sound investments in IT
- IT funding is important, as systems become the firm's legacy that influence, constrain or dictate how business processes are performed.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Data Cruncher
For the last few months I must have crunched a lot of data in the computing machine. My clan memebers will understand well when I mention something like a 100000 X 500 matrix of data etc, related to differnt characteristics; or the auction data set of around 100000 auction transactions with their click stream data etc. Thanks to Econometrics, and recent tools.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
CPU Frequency and Engineer's Comedy
Two articles from the recent issues of Spectrum attracted me.
Why CPU Frequency Stalled : Is something which I knew, but never explored beyond my general knowledge. The data presented provides the evidence of why we never see the CPUs beyond 2 GhZ. My eary years of career as a industrial design engineer to tacked the over heating issues of Supercomputers came to use. Still heating is an issue for servers and high performance computers. The ugly industrial air-conditioners and the air cutting noise due to them; is something which I could never tolerate. They ruin the meditating sernety of Supercomputers. Hopefully a day will come, there will be no need for them !!!
An engineer walks into a comedy club...: provided me some relief. If at all, amongst all the circumstances of life, there is no IT and no related business; perhaps I need to change my course in life. Well, my stretched acting career till high school and college days will come for a rescue. I never took that part of life forward. Neverthless, it is always true 'Inside every engineer, there lies an artist'. Bravo !! Corinna !! You are providing new lights .... I should store the jokes in my mailbox and practice my rhetoric delivery in front of mirror !!
Why CPU Frequency Stalled : Is something which I knew, but never explored beyond my general knowledge. The data presented provides the evidence of why we never see the CPUs beyond 2 GhZ. My eary years of career as a industrial design engineer to tacked the over heating issues of Supercomputers came to use. Still heating is an issue for servers and high performance computers. The ugly industrial air-conditioners and the air cutting noise due to them; is something which I could never tolerate. They ruin the meditating sernety of Supercomputers. Hopefully a day will come, there will be no need for them !!!
An engineer walks into a comedy club...: provided me some relief. If at all, amongst all the circumstances of life, there is no IT and no related business; perhaps I need to change my course in life. Well, my stretched acting career till high school and college days will come for a rescue. I never took that part of life forward. Neverthless, it is always true 'Inside every engineer, there lies an artist'. Bravo !! Corinna !! You are providing new lights .... I should store the jokes in my mailbox and practice my rhetoric delivery in front of mirror !!
- Near death experience of Outsourcing -
Outsourcing, offshoring ...yes, the discussions and my delibeartions for last couple of weeks are on this issue.
It starts from Prof. Anand Gopal to the recent article by Sramana Mitra. Her article, although well poised, but does not bring my senses into agreement, and I find the article biased. My disagreement starts from :
“India's $30 billion IT/ITES services industry, meanwhile, is slowly and surely losing its competitive advantage. They are complacent. They will not take risks. They have "outsourced" thinking to their customers”.
With the prediction that Indian IT services and outsourcing sectors is going to touch more than US$100bn in few years, her arguments does not sound true. Interstingly before I even finish this write up in blog and think about it ratonaly, the counter argument is already been done by Philip J. Fersht.
It starts from Prof. Anand Gopal to the recent article by Sramana Mitra. Her article, although well poised, but does not bring my senses into agreement, and I find the article biased. My disagreement starts from :
“India's $30 billion IT/ITES services industry, meanwhile, is slowly and surely losing its competitive advantage. They are complacent. They will not take risks. They have "outsourced" thinking to their customers”.
With the prediction that Indian IT services and outsourcing sectors is going to touch more than US$100bn in few years, her arguments does not sound true. Interstingly before I even finish this write up in blog and think about it ratonaly, the counter argument is already been done by Philip J. Fersht.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Handhelds for Health
Interstingly the use of handheld and PDAs are growing dramatically. However, a gadget is better know by its use or reach to people. Rather than getting cosntrained by only use for calls or similar purposes, its reach to the rural and remote places has made cases for innovative use.
Amongst many initiatives, I found two very intersting. One is that of AED Satelling Health Information and Technology work : http://pda.healthnet.org/handheld-projects.html
The other is http://handheldsforhealth.org/ : started by Drs. Shashank and Isha Garg. I know them since the Simputer days and their dedication towards the cause is immense. Recently returned from Stanford, they are ambitious enough to utilize the handhelds in India for remote health monitoring purposes.
My center at University of Maryland : Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) has collaborated with Arogya Foundation of India for studying their voluntary health monitoring system. We plan to tie up with Handhelds for Health to improve the working pattern of the Arogya Sevikas. All goes well, it may improve in providing a decision support system for health in remote villages of India.
Amongst many initiatives, I found two very intersting. One is that of AED Satelling Health Information and Technology work : http://pda.healthnet.org/handheld-projects.html
The other is http://handheldsforhealth.org/ : started by Drs. Shashank and Isha Garg. I know them since the Simputer days and their dedication towards the cause is immense. Recently returned from Stanford, they are ambitious enough to utilize the handhelds in India for remote health monitoring purposes.
My center at University of Maryland : Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) has collaborated with Arogya Foundation of India for studying their voluntary health monitoring system. We plan to tie up with Handhelds for Health to improve the working pattern of the Arogya Sevikas. All goes well, it may improve in providing a decision support system for health in remote villages of India.
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