Ajay Tewari, Author at Ajay's Blog

HOW 5G WILL TRANSFORM 2020 JAPAN OLYMPICS

By Ajay Tewari in Future, Tech Talk June 17, 2019

5G Japan Olympics Impact Blog by Ajay Tewari

“Machines are coming, and the 5G will be a big enabler with that true convergence of computing and communications.” Let’s see how this 10x faster speed will make planet earth biggest sporting event – “2020 Olympics” held at Japan.

5G means?

In technical frequency terms 5G with over 10 GBPS speed, can send a full-length high-definition movie in mere few seconds. “5G will be 10 times faster than current best 4G speed“. It also lead the way for “IoT” where devices from home door locks to dog collars all are connected and can talk to each other on user command. Indeed 5G will be important for developing AI, drones, self-driving vehicles, robots and other machines that transmit massive data in real time and need quick analyzation of those big transmitted data to give machines direction to take meaningful actions.

2020 Japan Olympics VS 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Due to 5G?

The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic and Paralympic Games smashed all television viewing records by racking up a cumulative audience over 4.1 billion in 150+ countries and territories. Tokyo will quite comfortably surpass the Rio figure, analysts believe, and provide tech companies with an unprecedented opportunity to show the rest of the world what Japan still does best.

5G will be an ally in transformation of current business models which is going to have big impact on one of the biggest sporting events in the world – the 2020 Olympics held in Japan. Japan being a global leader in mobile communications for the past four decades have planned to make the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games the most innovative and technologically advanced sporting event ever held on planet earth.

360-degree, 8K video streams – According to Aicha Evans, visitors to Tokyo for the 2020 festivities can expect 5G used to provide 360-degree, 8K video streams that provide an athlete’s point of view to a viewer in real time, along with virtual reality experiences, facial recognition for venue security and applications related to connected cars.

5G Powered, Spectacular Satellite driven opening ceremony plan – ALE Co. Ltd., a Japanese startup that is planning to create a man-made meteor shower as part of the opening ceremony. To create its artificial shooting star project, called Sky Canvas, the company plans to launch a series of microsatellites that will release more than 5,000 pellets that will circle the Earth before burning up spectacularly in the atmosphere. By changing the chemical composition of the pellets, the company will be able to create a multi-colored display that is literally out of this world. (Source: smithsoniamag.com).

5G Bandwidth Powered 2020 Olympics Hospitality Plan – Robots are being deployed at Tokyo’s airports to help visitors navigate the facilities and make their way either into the city or to their departure gates, while an offshoot of Toyota is working on a flying car that its designers hope might be employed in the opening ceremony to light the Olympic flame in a truly memorable manner. (Source: Forbes).

5G: Amalgamation of speed & security

Speed – Japan, which is known for its high speed trains keeping wireless mobile device data transmission and connectivity recently Samsung has tested the 5G, where they achieved 2.5Gbit/s transmission speed with a mobile device that was in a vehicle travelling 150km/h.

Security – Demonstration an advanced security service based on 5G network technology to determine the effectiveness of the service in handling security for the opening ceremonies of the 2020 Olympics. The trial involved the use of artificial intelligence (AI), advanced facial recognition system to automatically verify the identities of athletes, officials, staff, and media members along with drones having HD 4K camera, trial aims to use advance technology complemented by 5G speed which will “drastically increase security levels”.
Drone-based surveil¬lance technology that should help reduce the work¬load on human guards.

Speed + Security – Drones will operate at an altitude of between 50 and 70 meters, remain airborne for up to eight hours, and have the capability of monitoring an area with a radius of 2.5 Miles. There are even reports that “killer drones” are being con¬sidered that would eliminate unauthorized drones operating around Olympic venues. Equipped with lasers or projectiles, these drones would envelop a target with a net to bring it down. (Source: Japan Today).

Conclusion

There’s a lot of hype about 5G as a revolution, but most of us here don’t even know how their smartphones will work, after 5G, new apps flood gates will be opened and current 4G based mobile apps will very soon become obsolete. In my opinion 5G is not going to create dangerous terminators for us, instead it will help people to live better lives.

Japan will further consolidate its technology advancement in 2020 Olympic. What more you expect?

BE YOU…

By Ajay Tewari in Self May 10, 2019

Think about a time when you were extremely anxious — say, before standing up to publicly speak, raising your hand in a big meeting, or even walking through a room of strangers. The reason you felt small and scared and tense is you were worried about social disapproval – referred to as FOPO – fear of people opinion.

If you start paying less attention to what makes you you — your talents, beliefs, and values — and start conforming to what others may or may not think, you’ll harm your potential. You’ll start playing it safe because you’re afraid of what will happen on the other side of the critique. You’ll fear being ridiculed or rejected. When challenged, you’ll surrender your viewpoint. You won’t raise your hand when you can’t control the outcome. You won’t go for that promotion because you won’t think you’re qualified.

Unfortunately, FOPO is part of the human condition since we’re operating with an ancient brain. A craving for social approval made our ancestors cautious and savvy; thousands of years ago, if the responsibility for the failed hunt fell on your shoulders, your place in the tribe could be threatened. The desire to fit in and the paralyzing fear of being disliked undermine our ability to pursue the lives we want to create.

If you find yourself experiencing FOPO, there are ways to dampen the intensity of your stress responses. Once you’re aware of your thoughts, guide yourself toward confidence-building statements (I am a good public speaker, I’ve put in the work so that I can trust my abilities, I have a lot of great things to say, I’m completely prepared for this promotion). These statements will help you focus on your skills and abilities rather than others’ opinions. Take deep breaths, too. This will signal to your brain that you’re not in immediate danger.

I can’t overstate how important a personal philosophy is. I’ve noticed that, beyond a relentless pursuit of being their best, what makes these high performers great is their clear sense of the principles that guide them. Because of their clarity, they’re more willing to push themselves, learn more, and embrace discomfort. They can shut out the noise and opinions of fans and media and listen to their own well-calibrated, internal compass.

Once you’ve developed your own personal philosophy, commit yourself to live in accordance with its tenets. Start at home. Tell that person you love them. Dance at a wedding. Take risks. Be respectfully weird. (That probably means, be you.) Then try it at work. Give a presentation. Go for that promotion. Do things that will engender the opinions of others. When you feel the power of FOPO holding you back, simply acknowledge it, and re-connect to your philosophy and the larger objective at hand.

3 MISTAKES ENTREPRENEURS MUST FIX TO BE SUCCESSFUL

By Ajay Tewari in Future, Tech Talk May 3, 2019

Most of the Start-ups are wrap around successful business ideas. Plenty of them are on-demand platform ideas, whereas many entrepreneurs still trying their luck with social networking and ecommerce applications. But what it takes to survive first 5 year, where over 90% of the start-ups fails to live.

I receive pitch decks from many young energetic self-proclaimed entrepreneurs, who have big ambitions, live-in relationship with there idea’s and having a big appetite for money. But whenever I ask them what mistakes they shouldn’t do in their business strategy, then most of them fails to answer.

Being TiE Chandigarh Founding member, whose core objective to foster entrepreneurship and over 2 decade of my business experience, I love to mentor budding start-ups not only by sharing dos of business strategy, instead I emphasize more on don’ts.

SUCESSFUL START-UP’s FIX #1
LEADING DIGITAL: Biggest change occurred after dot-com bubble is “Social media and mobile connectivity” which has made businesses omnipresent for anyone from, ANYWHERE…! Consumers are not only showing there personal online presence, but your BUSINESSES are also presented as well as JUDGED ONLINE. It is the biggest advantage that any business can get. When you can order something online for you. Why not grab the online orders for your business?
Almost all type of businesses are running online. Whether it is a restaurant, a flower shop, a grocery store, medicines, water, courier or even marijuana and alcohol in some countries. Yes, you can order everything with online ordering systems. So, every start-up business should have a digital marketing plan from the very beginning.

SUCESSFUL START-UP’s FIX #2
LISTEN TO YOUR INNER CONVICTION: While in an interview with CEO Insight India once asked my advice for entrepreneurs.

SUCESSFUL START-UP’s FIX #3
RUNNING OUT OF CASH: “A FOUNDER GETS AN IDEA >> BUILDS THE SOLUTION >>TRIES TO SELL IT >> NOBODY BUYS THE SOLUTION >> THE FOUNDER RUNS OUT OF MONEY >> THE STARTUP DIES.”

Major reason why startups fail is that they simply run out of cash or they are unable to raise more funding. My experience and advice for entrepreneurs while pitching for VCs. Focus on solving real world problem which are worth solving

CONSLUSION:
“All I Want To Know Is Where I’m Going To Die So I’ll Never Go There. “-Charlie Munger
Just like above famous quote. entrepreneurs must know what mistakes they should never commit at the beginning/budding stage. To be successful one should not only know what things they must do, but on the contrary they must realize what mistakes they can’t afford.

Creating human-level AI could result in a “SuperIntelligent machine” taking over the world.

By Ajay Tewari in Future, Tech Talk March 14, 2019

Until now, AI has been applied fairly narrowly in limited fields like language translation or strategy games. In contrast, the holy grail of AI research is the production of AGI that would operate at a human level of intelligence.

But what would happen if this holy grail were found?
For starters, the creation of AGI might result in what’s known to AI researchers as an intelligence explosion.
An intelligence explosion is a process by which an intelligent machine gains superintelligence, a level of intelligence far above human capability.

It would achieve this through rapid learning and recursive self-improvement because an AGI could potentially design an even more intelligent machine, which could design an even more intelligent machine and so on. This could trigger an intelligence explosion that would allow machines to surpass human intelligence.

What’s more, superintelligent machines could take over the world and cause us harm, no matter how good our intentions.

Let’s say, for example, that humans program a superintelligence that is concerned with the welfare of humankind. From the superintelligence’s perspective, this would probably be akin to a bunch of kindergartners far beneath your intelligence holding you in bondage for their own benefit.

Quite probably you would find this a depressing and inefficient situation and take matters into your own hands. And what do you do with incompetent, annoying human obstacles? Control them, or better yet, destroy them.

Christmas & New Year Best Wishes

By Ajay Tewari in Future, Self December 25, 2018

We all look forward to this part of the year when things finally wind up for the year …specially In December there is lot to celebrate, Christmas, new year and so on and there is a great opportunity to celebrate these holidays to allow ourselves to be festive, to indulge a little bit more with the loved ones, and celebrate whatever there is to celebrate. But, there is one important aspect if we can bring in “mindfulness to our celebration” – eating mindfully and slowly, experiencing how much better food tastes, when we saviour it. We can bring “compassion and gentleness“ to the table if there is any overwhelm with a challenging family member- we can “practice patience and deep listening“. We can also practice forgiveness and gratitude for our loved ones and there generosity, there are lots of opportunities to be mindful BUT we can also let go a little…

Through the calendar year, many of our days are devoted to work in accomplishing things and we are incredibly focus on our responsibilities- so these opportunities we have… to let go and enjoy and celebrate life, these are important aspects of maintaining Work Life Balance…we can celebrate and let go in a mindful way…so be rejoice…allow yourself to relax, get more sleep if you need to, or stay up a little later…indulge in a few extra sweets..whatever gives you pleasure…The holidays will soon get over so while they are here enjoy this special time..as osho said Life should not only be lived it should be celebrated….celebrate the next few days with your loved ones.

I appreciate all of your great work this year; it is because of you, and because we know we can do so much more for customers and clients than anyone else, that I have such great confidence in our future. Please enjoy some well deserved rest with family and friends during this holiday season, and let’s get right back to it in 2019.

Merry Christmas and wishing you a very happy new year to you, your family and your loved ones.

2019 Future AI Healthcare Apps…?

By Ajay Tewari in Future, Tech Talk November 30, 2018

There is lot of buzz going around on “AI and as a healthcare provider” it does need a closer look at the opportunities in this area. 121 health AI and machine learning companies raised $2.7 billion in 206 deals between 2011 and 2017. Market is abuzz with news of how artificial intelligence (AI) is going to change health care & as a result several AI technologies are cropping up to help people streamline administrative and clinical health care processes. The field of health AI is seemingly wide—covering wellness to diagnostics to operational technologies—but it is still narrow in that health AI applications typically perform just a single task.

Some of the interesting work which companies are doing including clinical decisions support system for stroke prevention, tracking patient vitals on the move & managing home-care. If we start using AI for all the data we are generating today it can make a huge difference in diagnosis as well as preventive and corrective treatment.

AI today is more prevalent in assisting frontline clinicians to be more productive and in making back-end processes more efficient—but we are still some time away from AI apps making clinical decisions or improving specific clinical outcomes- which is the need of the current healthcare space. Clinical applications are still rare. Some of the potential areas where we can expect the market to grow based on what we have seen in 2018 are :-

1. Robotic assisted surgery replacing humans
2. Virtual nursing assistance due to labour shortages
3. Administrative work flow improving the existing infrastructure
4.Fraud detection
5. Preliminary diagnosis
6. Automated Image diagnosis
7. more and more…

For a software development house above are opportunities to be tapped provided one does understand it as a whole and not sum of all parts – which mean commands over writing software code will not be sufficient, one has to understand the entire paradigm of understanding what and why apart from how of the software being developed. More later….

Blockchain vs Database

By Ajay Tewari in Future September 17, 2018

How is the “Blockchain different from a database?” is a question that often pops up and it’s an important question.

In a typical Excel database one person enters data. That person may even share that database with someone else who can then add additional data, edit the data, or delete the data.And that is one of the biggest differences between the Blockchain and a database: Different parties can create, read, update, and delete data in a database.
In the Blockchain, on the other hand, data can only be written to a block, it cannot be updated or deleted. The Blockchain is, as they say, immutable. And, depending on whether the Blockchain you’re working with is public (permissionless), private, or permissioned, not everyone can always even read the block.

Let’s walk through an example:
Let’s say smartData contracts ABC Delivery to pick up a package in Sydney . While negotiating the contract smartData and ABCD agree on what data to track. They agree on the following data points; the date the package is picked up, the time it’s picked up, a scan of the package to confirm receipt, and a price for picking it up. ABCD delivery service scans the package when they pick it up. The scan serves to verify that the first part of the job has been performed on a certain date and time. This data is recorded and funds from smartData account are withdrawn to pay ABCD for the service.

Some of this could be done on a database. A database could keep track of the four agreed upon parameters. A database can even pull data from an API. A database might even be able to withdraw funds from a dedicated account.
Here’s what a database cannot do: A database cannot make sure that its data is not changed in any way. A database cannot exist in a distributed network adding to the security and verity of the data. A database cannot exist along a larger chain of transactions with an encrypted hash number to further heighten its security. And if a database cannot be trusted or remain immutable, would you want to use it to withdraw or deposit funds?
Lastly, if a database can be shared it can be read by anyone who gets their hands on it. On the other hand, if smartData and ABCD use a private Blockchain, only smartData and ABCD can read what they put on their Blockchain. Databases do have a certain level of security, but nowhere near the cryptography that the Blockchain does.

This is not an argument that the Blockchain is superior to a database. That’s like arguing that a hammer is superior to a screwdriver. They are different tools. Sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes a screwdriver. Sometimes all you need is a database, sometimes you need the Blockchain.

NO LEFT-TURNS

By Ajay Tewari in Future, Self, Uncategorized September 5, 2018

Life travels it’s own path and the story below depicts this wonderfully with lot of graceful lessons to be learnt – it’s up to us to learn from this wonderful story and follow – enjoy the story.

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes…

My father never drove a car. Well, that’s not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

“In those days,” he told me when he was in his 90s, “to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.”

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
“Oh, bull shit!” she said. “He hit a horse.”

“Well,” my father said, “there was that, too.”

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars – the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we’d ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. “No one in the family drives,” my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, “But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we’ll get one.” It was as if he wasn’t sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn’t drive, it more or less became my brother’s car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn’t bother my father, but it didn’t make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father’s idea. “Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?” I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn’t seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.

(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin’s Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish’s two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he’d take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests “Father Fast” and “Father Slow.”

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he’d sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I’d stop by, he’d explain: “The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.”

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, “Do you want to know the secret of a long life?”

“I guess so,” I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

“No left turns,” he said.

“What?” I asked

“No left turns,” he repeated. “Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic..

As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.”

“What?” I said again.

“No left turns,” he said. “Think about it.. Three rights are the same as a left, and that’s a lot safer. So we always make three rights.”

“You’re kidding!” I said, and I turned to my mother for support.

“No,” she said, “your father is right. We make three rights. It works.” But then she added: “Except when your father loses count.”

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.

“Loses count?” I asked.

“Yes,” my father admitted, “that sometimes happens. But it’s not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you’re okay again.”

I couldn’t resist. “Do you ever go for 11?” I asked.

“No,” he said ” If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can’t be put off another day or another week.”

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003.. My father died the next year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he’d fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, “You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.”

At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, “You know, I’m probably not going to live much longer.”

“You’re probably right,” I said.

“Why would you say that?” He countered, somewhat irritated.

“Because you’re 102 years old,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “you’re right.” He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: “I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.”

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: “I want you to know,” he said, clearly and lucidly, “that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.”

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I’ve wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can’t figure out if it was because he walked through life, or because he quit taking left turns.

“Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it & if it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.”

ENJOY LIFE NOW – IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!

A story to reflect upon – I loved the closing
“Nobody said life is easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it”.

I am what am because We all are!

By Ajay Tewari in Self July 14, 2018

The power of humanity has no boundaries – as much as we think that our boundaries are being defined in this modern world.

We often think of ourselves as individuals – seperate from each other or in competitions from each other. When a coworker receives a praise we feel something which was ours was taken away from us – we feel angry or jealous for not having similar accomplishments. This competitiveness filled world view can cloud our perception and stifle some of our most wonderful human qualities – which we realise once the train has left the station called Life.

There was a story – there was once an anthropologist lived with an African tribe and he asked the children to play the game and asked them to line up to run to the tree where he kept the basket of candies and the first one to arrive will win the baskets ! The kids all lined up bobbling on their feet awaiting the signal but when he shouted “Go” – kids instead of racing off in a competitive frenzy, the children held hands and went all together in one line – when they arrived at the tree and claimed the basket, they shared the candies equally !

Amazed by this act, the anthropologist asked how can they do that and WHY? They said how can ONE OF US BE HAPPY IF ALL THE OTHERS ARE SAD !! This is the concept of UBENTU – That loosely translates as Humanity – unbentu is a philosophy – a way of acting that prioritises well being of a group above that of an individual…it relies on human interdependence so that NO-ONE is left behind – I am what am because We all are!

Instead of feeling threatened by others – believe that we all are fundamentally good. Every generous action, kind words or warm thoughts can contribute to everyone’s well being including our own. Lets remind ourselves and let this story be a gentle reminder to all of us to see the world through the prism of UBENTU – allow your humanity to flourish, be generous, kind and welcoming to others – please remember that we are humans because of the humanity of others – As desmond Tutu said – Ubentu tells us that unbentu tells us that we can create a more peaceful world by striving for goodness in each moment wherever we are..Let go the rivalry of being better than others and you will find an intrinsic unsaid feeling of contentment and happiness which you will cherish..

Netizens Risk vs Rewards

By Ajay Tewari in Tech Talk June 12, 2017

In one of the famous US serial a character was assasinated by hacking into his pacemaker. Former US Vice president Dick Cheney got his pacemaker disconnected from wireless to avoid security breach. Welcome to the new world of wow technical marvels and one of perpetual insecurity.

Those individuals and groups who wish to do us harm are more empowered than at any time in the past. We all need to understand the disadvantage of always connected devices capturing every moment of our life through constant capturing of data by devices and companies offering us products and services for free. The ability of capturing nearly all the worlds information through a pocket “supercomputer” aka mobile has definitely bought benefits in our lives – we can reach loved ones at a moment’s notice, access a rapidly growing list of services instantly, and learn almost anything we want from anywhere. It’s not just the rich who are benefiting,the greatest gains are being made by the global poor, who can now communicate, collaborate, and bypass some of the institutional & societal barriers that have held them back.

Our personal information and security can become a tool of collateral damage in the continuing battle between nations for control. As high-speed, ubiquitous connectivity among all manner of devices binds us more tightly to technology and to the Internet, a crucial and frightening mega-trend in coming years can be, is that cyber security will become a more important domestic-security issue. If you follow the recent global news, Governments have joined the game of cyber attacks to reduce enemies power sitting thousands of miles away. The future war will not only involve electronic counter measures over enemies missiles and weapons system but also possible attack on IP networks to destroy or cripple civilian infrastructure.

Identity theft is on the roll in the past two decades, but we, the public remains in the dark about its growth in sophistication behind the scenes. The next few years will mark a change from inconvenience to real harm. As we read more about thefts of celebrities’ nude photos and exposure of people’s e-mail, hacking will become something, all of us worry a lot more about. Loss of financial identity is one thing. What is coming now is much uglier—and personal. Data breaches don’t take account of nuance, and may result in devastation of one’s personal and social lives. The trend of collecting data via all possible input devices makes all our movements visible to those who want to derive the good, the bad and the ugly !!!

Connected world through system has tied our lives to cloud which itself will become single point of failure for someone who has the intent to barge into our lives and its details. Do we realise that our unsuspecting behaviour on social media increase the “surface area” of the potential attack, turning our lives into topsy turvy spin. We post pictures of the cars we drive, talk about the places we eat at, publicly reveal our work histories and our personal networks and so on, without giving a second thought to how that information could be later used to hijack our identities right from social to financial and in developed nations its creeping into medical identities for false insurance claims.

The online thefts are difficult to track, increasingly hard to follow who knows what about us, and where they learned it. The convenience of one’s digital existences, from online photos to social networks to online document storage, is undeniable and likely irreversible. So do the benefits outweigh the risks?

I leave the judgement for you to decide whether the risks we face are worth the benefits we receive from putting so much of our data on line so unprotected. for me the conveniences of one-click online orders and automated log-ins to websites courtesy of Facebook are thin compared with the larger risks we face. The big problem is that users (meaning you and I) have only two alternatives: opt in, or opt out.

Are we convinced that sacrificing our security and privacy for online convenience is worth the price ? Is it worth sharing all our data on line and trusting that nothing bad will happen ? Can we curb the urge to share by considering the risk it may cause later?

Do we have the answers….I don’t, do you…….?

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Author: Ajay Tewari