Tag: Digital Economy

Amazon’s smartphone launch offers a prudent platform for growth

by Annabelle Gawer, Associate Professor in Strategy and Innovation at Imperial College London

This piece was originally published in The Conversation.

Amazon, the e-commerce internet giant, is launching its first smartphone. Media attention is focusing on whether the phone’s features, such as its rumoured 3D interface, are really as cool as portrayed in its trailer video which aims to wow early users. But by entering into the fray of an already hyper-competitive mobile phone industry, Amazon is doing a lot more than adding another gee-whizz feature to a smartphone.

This launch tells us a great deal about CEO Jeff Bezos’ strategy for his company – and what it might mean for the future of competition and innovation in our increasingly digital world.

World Intelligent Cities Summit 2012

Istanbul,13-14 September 2012

By Pantelis Koutroumpis

The first of its kind World Intelligent Cities Summit took place in Istanbul on the 13-14 September. The agenda included prominent figures from the Turkish government and local authorities together with international experts presenting best practices for the development of connected and sustainable cities. While primarily a business and policy summit it was a rather interesting meeting in terms of the common direction towards a more sustainable future where ICT plays a critical role.

Idris Gulluce, Deputy & Chair Committee on Public Works, Reconstruction, Transportation and Tourism of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) talked extensively about the importance of local culture and social understanding for the success of smart policies in cities.

The New Digital Tipping Point

The Digital Tipping Point: engaging customers through social media Sean Mahdi, Director, Pricewaterhouse Coopers 18.30-19.30 17 May 2012, Imperial College Business School Blog by Tao Feng

Sean Mahdi’s speech identified fundamental c hanges of the banking industry in the past decades. Building revenue heavily on financial leverage is no longer suitable due to increased regulatory intervention and industrial competition. A new business model is required to fully utilise digital technology to seize the opportunities among the customers, especially for those who have broadly interacted with the Internet.

In order to have a better understanding of this challe nge, research has been conducted by PwC with almost 3000 banking customers across the major markets.

Working together on smart cities

Ovum-DCE Smart Cities Europe 2012

The Lancaster, London 19-20 June 2012

You can find the Chirpstory for the event here.

In many ways the event revealed the broader problems with discussions around smart cities. There is the aspirational vision – cleaner, less-congested, less polluted and more prosperous cities – contrasted with the complex reality of current “smart” ICT projects, often mired in difficulties around business models, administrative jurisdiction, privacy and security issues and any number of other complex multi-stakeholder problems that crop-up when you try and integrate the physical and digital worlds; problems which go far beyond the scope of a simple technological fix.

Internet of Things Tech Meetup 8 #iotlondon

Tuesday 22 May 2012, Crayon London

By Koen van Dam

After previously attending the Internet of Things Meetup Meetup #6, it was only a matter of time before DCE would return to another edition of this informal get-together of a community focused on machine to machine communication, open data and trying to change the world. For IoT Meetup #8 the talks had a smart city/smart home/energy focus.

Before the three speakers gave their short presentation sparking off some interesting debates, Owen Davies explained the recent rebranding of Pachube to Cosm. In addition to providing a fresh new design and a name which is easier to pronounce (no more feeling smug hearing other people struggle with this after finally getting it right yourself), the new website wants to offer users more than just a place to store their data to be processed elsewhere.

Software engineering and the digital economy

Tuesday 6th March, Imperial College Business School

By Antoine Vernet

Anthony Finkelstein, dean of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at UCL and a professor of Computer Science was at Imperial College Business School on March 6, to give a talk entitled “Engineering Challenges of the Digital Economy”. His talk addressed discrepancies between technical issues of software development and the necessity to address consumer demand and to build sustainable business models for software companies.

The discipline of software engineering needs to rise to the challenges presented by the digital economy. In his talk, Anthony Finkelstein addressed 10 challenges facing software engineering in the digital economy.

The future of IT

Wednesday 8th March, Imperial College Business School

By Richard Foulsham

Lem Lasher, as Group President of Global Business Solutions and Chief Innovation Officer of CSC is in a unique position to assess the influences upon and potential future direction of the digital economy, having both the analytical capabilities of a leading edge consultancy and a business that’s involved in the day to deployment of IT around the world within his remit.

During this lecture he shared with us some of the “points of view” that his organisation has developed around “next practice”, likely developments that clever players in the IT market can use to gain an advantage, and identified some of the areas that he thinks will grow and become important as the digital revolution gets underway.

Open Data: Powering the Information Age

Technology Visionaries RAEng lecture series

Wednesday 22 February 2012, the Royal Society, London

By Claire Thorne and Koen van Dam Unsure of how many notable FREng’s to expect in the audience, we arrived at the Royal Society (the current base for the RAEng during their refurbishment). With twenty-four FREng’s on the delegate list, including one on stage, we weren’t disappointed (but possibly just a little underdressed!).

The lecture by Prof Nigel Shadbolt FREng (Prof of Artificial Intelligence, University of Southampton) was part of the RAEng’s Technology Visionaries series and promised a whistle-stop tour through the vast topic that is Open Data.