The Algiers Smart City Project is more than just another smart city project: It is a platform for talent mobilization. Over the past week, I had the pleasure to participate in the Smart Cities Summit in Algiers and as mentor and judge in the Leapfrog Hackathon and Startup Challenge. These events were designed to focus attention on Algiers… Read More »
5G as a platform for private networks and enterprise applications is more than just another service provider technology. Enterprises, neutral host service providers, building owners, asset management companies and many others are asking about the potential impact of 5G. We have prepared the 5G workshop to provide the facts – not sell the hype of 5G. The objective… Read More »
It’s official! Telecom is a utility! The admission comes from service providers themselves. Service providers struggled to monetize value added services to keep from being dumb pipes. Now, it seems that they have resigned themselves to being a utility and are happy to be the pipe. This admission came at the TMT M&A Merger Forum in London last… Read More »
Is blockchain just a buzzword, or can we expect real applications? If it is for real, where’s the opportunity? Xona’s thoughts on these questions are in the video below. Here, I give my own take on these questions.
Artificial intelligence is in yet another hype cycle – the fourth since the 1960’s. What is different this time from past hype cycles is that it is driven by data from the bottom up as opposed a top-down approach in previous hype cycles. The pervasiveness of connectivity and the Internet make AI applicable in many industries, including telecom.… Read More »
The Xona Partners team was at Mobile World Congress and compiled a set of takeaways focusing on industry trends (link). Here, I wanted to add some personal observations on MWC 2018 which is a good barometer of the state on the wireless industry. But I don’t think you can judge based on the size of the event. Rather, it’s… Read More »
Startups lead innovation in the technology world. But is there room for startups in the telecom world? And, what is the future of innovation in this industry? Innovation is one of the themes of this year’s Mobile World Congress which is starting next week, so will the ecosystem address this question? Is telecom a utility play? Services providers… Read More »
One of the criticisms of blockchain technology center on power consumption and the cost of mining. The electricity consumed in mining operations is high and continues to grow as mining difficulty increases in response to increasing processing power. Some think that blockchains is wasteful technology that is not compliant with a 21st century outlook for a green economy.… Read More »
Look at how well the price of Bitcoin correlates with its search trend. As Bitcoin raced to a record high nearing $20,000 earlier this month, so were the number of searches. We can see the same thing happening in 2013-2014 when a mini hype bubble developed focusing on narrow segments of people. Today’s hype bubble is more wide-spread and… Read More »
We designed workshops in emerging technologies to help executives gather the important facts and get a head-start on establishing a strategy to leverage innovation. Each workshop is delivered by a sector practitioner with insights into both technology and market aspects. Artificial Intelligence: Xona eXponent Workshop on Artificial Intelligence Blockchains: Xona eXponent Workshop on Blockchains The workshops could be customized to… Read More »
This past week, I had the pleasure to moderate a panel on digital transformation and to join my Artificial Intelligence-expert partners at Xona in conducting a workshop on AI at TMT Finance World Congress to a crowd of ecosystem professionals. It is ironic that an industry that is a catalyst to the transformation of many other industries is… Read More »
Xona Partners in cooperation with TMT Finance, has launched its one-day executive workshop series: Xona eXponent. The workshop on November 28th in London, will be focused on AI Investment. The event features four Xona team members who have worked in the Automotive, Financial Services, and Telecom Infrastructure industries bringing cutting edge technology to life. Recent estimates report that… Read More »
Blockchain investments have long ceased to be the preserve of the fintech industry, having branched out over the past 2 – 3 years to different industries including health care, real estate, insurance, retail, and education to name a few. The telecom and Internet sectors are no exceptions. Focusing on the telecom space, we find that we are in… Read More »
Blockchains has evolved from a technology for cryptocurrencies to one supporting applications in multiple industries, including telecom. A few leading telcos are investigating the potential of blockchains (link). Many applications are being proposed including roaming fraud mitigation, flexible service offering or selection, IoT contracts, authentication and many use cases. However, when it comes to actual and practical solutions,… Read More »
A survey of smart city activities around the world shows that much of the focus of smart city projects remains on establishing the most basic of services such as connectivity. In fact, there is a clear lag in the deployment of technologies and services in smart city applications, versus what technologies enable. We call this the cascading technology… Read More »