This talk will survey advancements in Watson and cognitive computing since the Jeopoardy! Challenge of 2011. It will include a recap of how Watson works, what it does, how Watson implementations are built, and how they are deployed, followed by a discussion of various use case categories that have emerged, citing examples in public sector and health care. New capabilities on the horizon will also be covered in the context of use cases.
 
The discussion will be led by Christopher F. Codella, an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, IBM Cognitive Solutions. Chris had reviewed the Watson architecture with the Roundtable in early 2012. His current activities center around complex data analytics, particularly applying IBM’s Watson technology to build solutions that support the missions of government agencies at all levels. Dr. Codella earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University in 1984 and first joined IBM in 1979 at the East Fishkill, NY semiconductor lab working on advanced memory devices. In 1989 he became a Research Staff Member in the Computer Science Department at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center where he managed the Virtual Worlds Group developing software for collaborative, networked virtual environments. Later, as Senior Manager of the Enterprise Middleware department, he led a team in development of object-oriented application server technology, distributed systems, reusable software components, component architecture, and web services. He has received IBM's Invention Achievement Awards and Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards for his contributions to Enterprise Java and J2EE, and for leading the development of IBM Research’s Global Technology Outlook. From 2003 to 2008 Dr. Codella served as Deputy Chief Technology Officer of IBM Federal. Dr. Codella is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, author of numerous of professional publications and conference papers, and holder of several US and international patents.

WHEN: January 26, 2016 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102

Three Roundtable members will lead the discussions on three very interesting topics:
 
Shahid Shah
Conversational User Experiences (CUX): How should CTOs design technology for a world without normal screens, “apps” or voice-only mobile experiences? We will discuss how Chatbots, messaging and AI-infused conversations are changing how consumers are acquiring products and services.
 
Patrick Gartlan
Managing Cloud Infrastructure: Organizations have migrated significant workloads to the cloud. Virtual Machine Sprawl and Cybersecurity in the cloud are real issues. We will discuss best practices in managing cloud deployments from security and cost perspectives.
 
Thad Scheer
#noprojects: The #noprojects movement is taking the industry by storm as an emerging trend in world-class software production. For the first time, we have a legitimate answer to the question, “what comes after Agile”? While the name is somewhat self-illuminating and the philosophy is an extension of Kanban, there are surprising aspects to the movement that anyone working in IT today should be aware of. We will discuss what #noprojects is, who is behind it, and what parts are practical (or impractical) in a 2017 timeframe.

WHEN: December 14, 2016 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102

Many software issues and bugs are rooted in the design and architecture of the product. However, it is very hard to evaluate the quality of software design. Silverthread has developed a technique to objectively evaluate Software Design Quality.

The session will be led by the founders of Silverthread. Silverthread has developed CodeMRI, a suite of tools that help organizations objectively visualize the Architecture and Design quality of software to understand the long-term maintainability of a system. The company has thousands of benchmarks and provides statistical projections to help estimate the future maintainability, agility, cost, and risk of working in a codebase base. Silverthread also has tools to help an organization determine whether a codebase should be left alone, refactored, or rewritten and to estimate the ROI of different scenarios.
 
Over the past 15 years, the founders researched the topic at Harvard Business School and MIT, creating measures of design quality using network analytic techniques, and measuring the impact of process agility on business and operational outcomes.  Early research done by the team lays out methods for capturing and benchmarking design quality (modularity, hierarchy, layering, commonality, etc) in large and complex software codebases. The technology can be applied to analyze systems developed with a broad range of programming languages.
 
The discussion will be led by Dr. Dan Sturtevant, Co-founder and CEO of Silverthread.

WHEN: July 15, 2016 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102

Given the intense focus on Encryption and Privacy in the recent months, it is a great time for us to better understand the largest encrypted network and the currency used in that environment.
 
Matt Devost, an international security expert specializing in cybersecurity, counterterrorism, critical infrastructure protection, intelligence, and risk management will lead the discussion. Thank you Bob Gourley for the introduction to Matt!
 
Matt is currently the President & CEO of FusionX, LLC, a global cybersecurity, technology, and risk management solutions company. He helps a global clientele identify and manage dynamic cyberthreats in complex operational environments.
 
Matt holds an appointment as a special government advisor to counsel the U.S. Department of Defense leadership on a variety of security issues. He is also on the Black Hat advisory board, helping to shape the agenda for a series of world-class information security conferences. Additionally, Matt serves as a Senior Advisor to CrucialPoint, has been an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University since 2002 teaching the flagship graduate course entitled “Information Warfare and Security”, and is a Founding Director of the Cyberconflict Studies Association.
 
WHEN: May 13, 2016 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102

Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early-stage top Silicon Valley VC firm focused on enterprise tech, will be joining us along with two of their hottest analytics startups.
 
Ajeet Singh, Co-founder and CEO of ThoughtSpot and Tomer Shiran, Co-founder and CEO of Dremio will lead a discussion on the next frontier of data analytics and user experience:

• Tomer Shiran is the CEO and co-founder of Dremio, which is revolutionizing data analytics by enabling business users and analysts to discover, explore and analyze any data at any time. Prior to Dremio, he was VP Product at MapR, where he was responsible for product strategy, roadmap and new feature development. As a member of the executive team, Tomer helped grow the company from five employees to over 300 employees and 700 enterprise customers. Prior to MapR, Tomer held numerous product management and engineering positions at Microsoft and IBM Research. He holds an MS in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS in computer science from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, as well as five U.S. patents.
  
  
• Ajeet Singh is Co-founder and CEO at ThoughtSpot. Driven by his passion for creating impactful businesses, Ajeet has had the experience of creating billion-dollar technology companies from scratch. Prior to starting ThoughtSpot, he was Co-founder and Chief Products Officer at Nutanix, an IPO-worthy company that’s revolutionizing the enterprise data storage industry. Ajeet and his team defined a “No SAN” market segment that is changing the landscape in the $20B storage market.
  
  Prior to Nutanix, Ajeet learnt the ropes of enterprise technology startups at Aster Data (acquired by Teradata for $300M), where he was Senior Director of Product Management. Prior to Aster Data, he worked at Oracle where he was part of the team that first launched Oracle Database to the Amazon EC2 cloud. Ajeet holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he graduated at the top of his class.

WHEN: March 31, 2016 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: Sphere Of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102

Witness how data science is about to feed 300 million new people by fundamentally transforming agriculture. The self-driving tractor in fields today places millions of seeds at millimeter accuracy in three dimensions while running at 10 MPH. As a planter traverses the field we dynamically control every variable about seed placement, including spacing, depth, and down force. On precision sprayers we independently vary the amount of product sprayed by nozzle-section. At harvest, every grain moves through an array of onboard moisture and mass sensors to precisely measure yield as the combine advances. Data generated by a single farm operation is staggering. A massive tonnage of real-time target rate and actual measurement data is wirelessly streamed to the cloud through a mesh-network infrastructure. At this month’s CTO Roundtable see how a data science pipeline activates the world’s largest ‘internet of things’ telematics streams to fundamentally transform an industry. This isn’t exploratory data analytics. We’ll talk about how data science is weaponizing digital assets to create otherwise unreachably high yields, low costs, and new competitive footholds in adjacent marketplaces for ag companies.
 
The discussion will be led by:

• John Sipple, the Chief Scientist at Sphere of Influence, a local analytics studio known for ground-breaking innovation using machine learning and advanced data science. John has applied his skill to aerospace, the intelligence community, agriculture, automotive, and cyber-security – just to name a few domains.
• Thad Scheer (CTO Roundtable Member) directs innovation for Sphere’s digital business strategy portfolio in Agriculture and Automotive. Thad will explain how data science combines with digital product development, making the case that data science without product innovation is like soup without a bowl.

WHEN: February 5, 2016 from 8 AM - 10 AM

WHERE: John and Thad have graciously agreed to host us at:
Sphere of Influence, 1420 Spring Hill Rd., Lobby Level, McLean, VA 22102