Internet of Things, Shaping Enterprises and Consumers

HOUSTON: “The nerds are back in style” said Anup Sharma, Global CIO for Oil and Gas at GE, during his keynote speech at the Jones Graduate Business School, Rice University. Through his light and articulate presentation, he engaged the audience on the topic of Internet of Things. Quoting how Airbnb and Uber are valued as multi-billion dollar enterprises even without owning any assets, Anup walked the audience on how keeping informed and deriving insights through connected devices is shaping our future. Anup mentioned that the top three areas benefiting from the Industrial IoT are machine and equipment health, reliability management, and maintenance optimization. IoT is reshaping preventive maintenance and improving operational efficiency of assets such as locomotives, aircraft engines & refineries, he said.

Second half of the evening was an interactive session between audience and a group of distinguished panelists. Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy (Chief Data Scientist, Halliburton), Amit Bhandari (Associate Partner at IBM Oil & Gas) and Avijit Sinha (Director of Business Development for IoT at Microsoft) were facilitated by the ever jovial Sundy Srinivasan (VP of Engineering at ZenTech and ex-President of IITAGH). Participants questioned about application of IoT and data analytics to smaller organizations, availability of IoT technologies as open source, cyber-security, digital maturity in Oil and Gas, Azure Machine Learning, and how an IoT toothbrush would provide information to my dentist, or Fitbit readings be available for my doctor, to improve personal health and outcomes. Participants learnt that the IoT is real and a game changer. The roles of CIOs to new hires will evolve as these technologies define the future of operations and IT. Post event, participants networked among themselves, with the keynote speaker and the panelists to learn more about the IoT and how they can grow their career in this field.

IITAGH hosted this keynote and panel discussion at Rice University in conjunction with Rice Indo American Business Club on March 28th from 6-8:30p. Shell Auditorium was a packed house of 170 attendees which included IT/business professionals, Executives, Entrepreneurs, Rice Faculty and Students from Rice University, University of Houston and North American University. Professor K.Ramesh welcomed Anup Sharma, Sundy introduced the panelists to the audience and Nishanth Babu, thanked everyone for a great evening of networking and learning.

IITAGH President, Shamanth Shankar thanked Prof K. Ramesh and Nishanth for support from Rice, Riken Pandya, Shreya Chauhan for volunteering at the event, Sundy Srinivasan for being the moderator, Keynote speaker Anup Sharma, panelists: Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy, Amit Bhandari and Avijit Sinha and the participants for making it to the event.

IITAGH is planning on hosting an event on Oil & Gas , “Where do we go from here” in May.

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