30 Challenges for 30 Days of Growth

Scientists have suggested that, with a little willpower, it takes roughly 30 days for a person to form a new habit. As with mastering anything new, the act of starting and getting beyond the preliminary stage where everything feels awkward is 80% of the battle. This is precisely why it’s important to make small, positive changes every day over the course of at least a 30 day period.

Below you will find 30 challenges to be accomplished over the course of 30 days. If carried out diligently each of them has the potential to create a new positive habit in your life. Yes, there is some slight overlap between a few of them. And no, you don’t have to attempt all at once. Pick 2 to 5 and commit the next 30 days, wholeheartedly, to successfully completing the challenge. Then once you feel comfortable with these habits, challenge yourself with a few more the following month.

Use words that encourage happiness.
Try one new thing every day.
Perform one selfless act every day.
Learn and practice one new skill every day.
Teach someone something new every day.
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Google AI algorithm masters ancient game of Go

Deep-learning software defeats human professional for first time.

A computer has beaten a human professional for the first time at Go — an ancient board game that has long been viewed as one of the greatest challenges for artificial intelligence (AI).

The best human players of chess, draughts and backgammon have all been outplayed by computers. But a hefty handicap was needed for computers to win at Go. Now Google’s London-based AI company, DeepMind, claims that its machine has mastered the game.

DeepMind’s program AlphaGo beat Fan Hui, the European Go champion, five times out of five in tournament conditions, the firm reveals in research published in Nature on 27 January1. It also defeated its silicon-based rivals, winning 99.8% of games against the current best programs. The program has yet to play the Go equivalent of a world champion, but a match against South Korean professional Lee Sedol, considered by many to be the world’s strongest player, is scheduled for March. “We’re pretty confident,” says DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis.

“This is a really big result, it’s huge,” says Rémi Coulom, a programmer in Lille, France, who designed a commercial Go program called Crazy Stone. He had thought computer mastery of the game was a decade away.

The IBM chess computer Deep Blue, which famously beat grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, was explicitly programmed to win at the game. But AlphaGo was not preprogrammed to play Go: rather, it learned using a general-purpose algorithm that allowed it to interpret the game’s patterns, in a similar way to how a DeepMind program learned to play 49 different arcade games.

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An executive’s guide to the Internet of Things

As the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained popular attention in the five years since we first published on the topic,1 it has also beguiled executives. When physical assets equipped with sensors give an information system the ability to capture, communicate, and process data—and even, in a sense, to collaborate—they create game-changing opportunities: production efficiency, distribution, and innovation all stand to benefit immensely. While the consumer’s adoption of fitness bands and connected household appliances might generate more media buzz, the potential for business usage is much greater. Research from the McKinsey Global Institute suggests that the operational efficiencies and greater market reach IoT affords will create substantial value in many industries. (For more, see the video “What’s the one piece of advice for a business leader interested in the Internet of Things?” And to see how experts believe the Internet of Things will evolve, see “The Internet of Things: Five critical questions.”)

There are many implications for senior leaders across this horizon of change. In what follows, we identify three sets of opportunities: expanding pools of value in global B2B markets, new levers of operational excellence, and possibilities for innovative business models. In parallel, executives will need to deal with three sets of challenges: organizational misalignment, technological interoperability and analytics hurdles, and heightened cybersecurity risks.
Opportunities beckon . . .

IoT’s impact is already extending beyond its early, most visible applications. A much greater potential remains to be tapped.

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Why and How this Indian Realty Portal Exploits Data Science

While banks and ecommerce companies have tried their hands at data science and are benefitting from their initiatives around it, real estate appears to be the next big vertical that intends to leverage data science.

Housing.com, the Mumbai-based startup, is one among the top Indian online businesses that bet on data science and machine learning algorithms as a core priority. The realty portal, which raised $190 mn from Japan’s SoftBank, has come up with many tools such as Traffic Flux, Heat Maps, Listing Decay, and more in their efforts to present information to users in a visually appealing way that is more interactive than traditional plain listings.

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5 key trends for the future of clean energy

In November 2015, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC), a team of private investors, announced a multi-billion dollar fund to “get energy technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace”. The scope of the initiative, including the marketplace, is relevant: development and demonstration of new energy technologies are no guarantee for successful commercial deployment.

Three key reasons contribute to the challenge of commercializing new energy technologies:

1. Time-to-bankability 
2. Capital intensity
3. Ecosystem development

Against these challenges, 2015 was a landmark year with five key trends that have the potential to accelerate the commercialization of energy technology for the future:

1. Clean energy overtakes fossil fuels
2. New sources of capital and financial products
3. The rise of distributed generation
4. Commercial and industrial customers take the lead
5. Government-funded cross-technology development

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Four critical things that make a Digital India possible today and challenges ahead

This government's Digital India campaign is a welcome step in creating an India of the 21st century powered by connectivity, technology and the opportunity that such connectivity offers in terms of access, services and platforms for unleashing India's creative talent.

However, it is imperative to understand what it means to create a 'Digital India'. Such an effort requires an entire ecosystem of support and an apparatus for implementation that has to be developed and matured over a period of time.

While the face of Digital India may be a website providing e-governance or connectivity between the citizen and the government, the thinking, vision and systems that produce this end product are implemented over several years.

Full story in ET dt. 5th Jul 2015 by Sam Pitroda

Mobility disruption: A CIO perspective

Enterprise mobility is poised to fundamentally change the IT landscape. Here’s an overview of the opportunities and some early lessons on how to manage the associated security risks, costs, and organizational challenges

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Big Data: The Management Revolution

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” There’s much wisdom in that saying, which has been attributed to both W. Edwards Deming and Peter Drucker, and it explains why the recent explosion of digital data is so important. Simply put, because of big data, managers can measure, and hence know, radically more about their businesses, and directly translate that knowledge into improved decision making and performance.

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CIO challenges: Bringing your iPad to work

The arrival of personal technology in the office is a challenge for all organisations. The technology is here, but not yet adapted for corporate use, and CIOs are asking what security policies must be put in place to safeguard network services and company data are these devices proliferate. This white paper describes how these devices can be identified on the network, securely enrolled, and authenticated and authorised on the network Download the whitepaper

Gen Y: How Millennials Are Changing the Workplace

At 76 million strong, more than double the size of Generation X (1965-1979), Generation Y is the largest generation to enter the American market place since the 80 million baby boomers born in 1946. Referred to as Gen Y, Millennials or Next Gen (roughly 1980-1989), this group already has established a name for itself — and not a particularly favorable one. Known as the “what’s in it for me?” generation, Gen Y is presenting challenges for managers and impacting diversity and inclusion initiatives.

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