On a Thursday last month, I found myself at a speech by Amit Singhal, senior VP of search at Google. He was addressing a group of people brought together by the Dubai chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE). (Yes, this is really what I did on one Thursday evening!)
Singhal was speaking on what Google considered to be the future of search. By way of trying to expand on what the future held, Singhal (who, along with his team, is behind the core algorithm that drives Google’s search engine) expanded on Google’s evolution. According to him, Google’s initial years were an effort to present data to the person searching the internet. The next step involved presenting information out of this data. In the past few years, Singhal says Google has been working to modify this to concrete knowledge for the person who is searching the internet.
The next step would be wisdom, said Singhal.
Wisdom – that made me sit up in my seat. It is relatively easy to understand the provisioning of data; one can even understand how that data can be converted to information and knowledge. But wisdom – isn’t that a lofty ambition even for the likes of Google? And can one really provide wisdom? Is wisdom simply an answer to a question or is it the cumulative knowledge accrued over time, whether in the case of an individual or a group of people?
I remain a little sceptical of how Google can provide wisdom to search queries. However, I do believe that all of us are constantly working to a higher stage of knowledge-processing, which would eventually allow us to be wiser on any given subject.
I also believe that when groups of like-minded people, searching for the same answers, get together, they are likely to collectively move along the path to wisdom faster, and in a more efficient manner.
This is why CNME has been spearheading regional ICT events over the last two years. As summer dawns on us, it has already concluded various events, and the team is now busy working on the events of the last quarter.
Key among these is Cloud Congress 2012 and ICT Achievement Awards 2012.
In its second year, Cloud Congress will bring together regional end-users, vendors and partners to discuss the state of private and hybrid cloud adoption in the Middle East, and to argue the challenges that still plague this set of technologies in order to collectively move along the maturity curve. (Register for the event and get more details by visiting www.cloudcongressme.com).
ICT Achievement Awards, in its third year now, will again set the standard for Awards functions in the ICT industry of the region. We will be recognising the work of organisations and individuals across 20 different categories, and this year our focus is most certainly on innovation.
By highlighting the work of IT leaders across the region, we hope that others will be able to take a leaf out of their books and work on increasing efficiency in their own organisations. (Nominations are now open for the Awards. Visit www.ictachievementawards.com for details on categories and to download the form).
Wisdom can be elusive and difficult to achieve. CNME is working to become a simple and humble enabler for more professionals in the Middle East ICT industry to be the wiser – much like Google is for search.
Write to sathya@cpidubai.com, and let us know your thoughts on how else we can be of help.
