If there is one thing that 2020 taught us, forecasting which trends would define the next year remains a challenge. Very few would have believed me if I had written that by mid-2020, the majority of organisations would work from home. Nevertheless, several of the trends I predicted last year, in what I called the Year of Convergence, appeared to be correct.

First of all, 5G did indeed go mainstream with the majority of smartphone producers now having released a 5G phone. According to a recent Huawei conference, there are already 130 million 5G users. Many organisations are experimenting with…

Before September 2020, Polkadot was virtually unknown to the ordinary investors. By November 2020, it had a market cap of $5 billion. It has become the biggest conversation in blockchain technology. There are several good reasons for the massive interest in this blockchain. Top of these reasons is that it holds great promise in the push towards decentralised apps, including decentralised finance (DeFi).

What is Polkadot?

Polkadot is an open-source multichain that facilitates interoperability between other blockchains. It allows the cross-blockchain transfer of tokens, data, and any type of assets. This interoperability sets Polkadot apart from other blockchains like Ethereum.

Polkadot was launched…

The growth of the “gig economy” in recent years has revolutionised the way that millions of people work. Proponents argue that the gig economy gives people more flexibility and opportunities and lowers barriers of entry to the labour market, while detractors say that it erodes workplace regulations and standards while encouraging businesses to treat workers as increasingly disposable.

No matter which side of the debate you fall on, it’s clear that the gig economy is here to stay. But with more and more people signing up for these flexible and freelance work arrangements, how can businesses manage them effectively?

Enter…

What’s the current state of blockchain and “fake news”?

In recent years, a great deal of attention has been devoted to the supposed rise in “fake news”: a term that can cover everything from satire and misleading content to articles that are completely fabricated. According to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveyed respondents in 28 countries:

• 59 percent of people said they were unsure about the reliability of information they see in the media.
• 63 percent said they believe the average person does not know how to differentiate journalistic facts from falsehoods.
• Almost 70 percent said they worry about fake news being used as a “weapon.”

“Deepfakes,” manipulated…

Microsoft made waves this May when it announced that it would lay off more than 50 journalists and editors from its workforce. Many of these employees were involved in the news curation process, selecting hand-picked content that would run on the Microsoft News and MSN websites. But their positions won’t go unfilled for long: Microsoft is expected to replace them not with new hires, but with AI software that can identify trending and interesting articles, essentially performing their old job function.

But curation is just one task that AI “journalists” can now accomplish. Kristian Hammond, a computer science professor and…

Digital transformation is a prerequisite for most companies to maintain their competitive or leading position. Especially in these uncertain times, it has become apparent that digitization is indispensable for companies if they want to be and remain successful. The company must be agile and innovative and, moreover, always put the customer first (customer-centric). Digitization is a catalyst that can provide the company with a competitive advantage.

It is important to be innovative at different levels within the organization. For that to succeed, it is vital that there are commitment and a willingness to change at all levels of the organization…

What is GPT-3?

In February 2019, the artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI sent shockwaves through the world of computing by releasing the GPT-2 language model. Short for “Generative Pretrained Transformer 2,” GPT-2 is able to generate several paragraphs of natural language text — often impressively realistic and internally coherent — based on a short prompt.

Scarcely a year later, OpenAI has already outdone itself with GPT-3, a new generative language model that is bigger than GPT-2 by orders of magnitude. The largest version of the GPT-3 model has 175 billion parameters, more than 100 times the 1.5 billion parameters of GPT-2. …

If there is one thing that this Corona crisis has made clear, every organisation needs to digitally transform their business as soon as possible. Digital is here to stay, and organisations are finally aware of it. Covid-19 enabled in days what organisations used to take years: enabling employees to work remotely and embracing digital technologies in their operations.

To help organisations in their pursuit of digital transformation, I would like to share a preview with you of my latest book: The Organisation of Tomorrow; How AI, blockchain and analytics turn your business into a data organisation. In the book, I…