IBM keen to help Jersey’s digital transformation

IBM keen to help Jersey’s digital transformation

Andy Stanford-Clark, IBM chief technology officer for the UK and Ireland, said: ‘We are very keen to have a deeper involvement here on the Island and getting involved in some of your digital transformation journey.

‘I’ve had some good conversations with the energy company and water company. They are in the process of digital transformation and seeing how analytics can make their businesses more efficient.

‘I think there’s lots of opportunity to help make the Jersey infrastructure more efficient and help it run better, which will give advantages to all Jersey citizens and businesses on the Island.’

Mr Stanford-Clark has been working in IoT for the past 20 years for IBM and was at the Island of Things event, talking to a range of businesses ahead of the launch of Digital Jersey’s DJX, a hub for IoT innovation. Mr Stanford-Clark explained that IoT was about augmenting existing processes in businesses with the use of sensors and the data they collected.

IoT can be used for any industry. For example, it can be used for healthcare by installing sensors which can alert a carer if an elderly person hasn’t got up and made a cup of tea.

Or how about a sensor on a lobster pot that can alert fishermen when a lobster has gone inside? It could make checking pots far more efficient, because you would know which pots were empty and ultimately which areas are providing the best catches.

Mr Stanford-Clark insists that IoT is not just for large corporations and IT experts – the technology has advanced to the point now where the sensors are cheap and can be bought off the shelf. He also insists that you don’t need a PHD in data analytics to be able to process the data from the sensors and turn that into some valuable actions for your business.

‘It’s here and now and definitely for smaller businesses as well,’ he said. ‘Because of that low cost and the fact that processing data in the cloud is a lot cheaper than having to run your own data centre, owning a whole load of computers and employing people to look after them, any business can send some data to the IBM cloud, process it and get information from it.

‘There was a classic example where someone put a sensor on the oven where they were making Danish pastries and every time they opened the door that would send a message to people saying “Danish pastries hot out of the oven now”, and all these people would flock into the shop because they’d got the alert, and buy them, and they’d sell out almost the moment they hit the deck because people wanted warm pastries straight out the oven.’

IoT has the potential to not only do what you are doing better, but also discover a completely new way of doing things which wouldn’t have been possible without the knowledge gathered from the remote sensors.

‘It’s not so much the sensors and what they do – it’s more increasingly the insights you get from the data. So we talk about turning data into information, information into knowledge and then knowledge into insights, and in particular actionable insights.’

IBM is one of the companies offering a service that enables businesses to put all their data into the cloud and process it using their artificial intelligence, IBM Watson. Encouraging more use of their own system is obviously ultimately to their business advantage, but it’s a technology which is readily accessible to anyone because it starts off free. You only start paying for the service once you have got above a certain level of usage, when you start making money from your own customers.

Mr Stanford-Clark says IBM aren’t just interested in talking to individual businesses in the Island, – the Digital Jersey initiative, the whole-Island sandbox, where companies can experiment and develop solutions, is also attractive to IBM and other companies.

‘You’ve got a great internet connectivity and I know JT are experimenting with a number of different IoT wireless connection mechanisms, like narrow band IoT for example, and LORA, which means there is an environment here that is ideal for people to try out IoT ideas,’ he said.

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