InnoTech Austin

Twenty years ago, Bill Gates spoke about creating a “digital nervous system” for a business that was connected both internally and externally using networks, servers, PCs, and the internet. That vision has largely been achieved on a bigger and richer scale. Today what used to be an idea straight out of “science fiction” is now becoming a “science reality” with the convergence of massive processing power, storage, and connectivity. Machine learning and its capabilities are already imbedded in many advanced products - and the number different intelligence and learning applications for a business to choose and utilize is growing exponentially.

Since 2012, Russ Finney has served in parallel as a researcher with the itmWEB Group, as an advisory partner with the Stratamation Network, and a business and strategy Lecturer at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business. From these perspectives, and the associated research, he is seeing and sharing the critical paths and trends that the most successful companies are taking to plan and maximize their own use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to serve both customers and internal employees. Artificial intelligence is creating significant new efficiencies for business and, as a result, these improvements are creating the additional space for employees to be more innovative and to add more value. In this talk, Russ explains exactly how organizations are making this happen.

Prior to his current research and teaching, Russ worked as a CIO in the semiconductor, aerospace, and financial services industries for over 20 years. In 2016, he was named a Top 5 executive CIO Influencer through social media by Apollo Research (@rfinney). The key take-away ideas from this presentation are IT executive action items and approaches which can be immediately applied at any company - no matter the size or sophistication.