In this episode, we talk about looking at various technologies and their impact on business and society. Our guest and digital speaker, Dr. Mark van Rijmenam, talks about cutting-edge tech like augmented reality and describes how wearables can be used by insurers to promote good health, which benefits both insurers and their clients.
In this episode, we talk about looking at various technologies and their impact on business and society. Our guest and digital speaker, Dr. Mark van Rijmenam, talks about cutting-edge tech like augmented reality and describes how wearables can be used by insurers to promote good health, which benefits both insurers and their clients.
Microsoft Mesh enables presence and shared experiences from anywhere – on any device – through mixed reality applications.
Additionally, he talks about the democratization of AI and what is happening there, both good and bad.
Episode Links:
Episode Transcript
Datafloq
Datafloq on Twitter
Quantum computing at Microsoft
Azure Quatum
Q# and the Quantum Development Kit
Guests:
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam is the Digital Speaker.
He focuses on the Future of Work and how to build the organization of tomorrow using emerging technologies that include big data analytics, blockchain, the Internet of Things, tokenomics, and Artificial Intelligence.
Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter. Visit his website at thedigitalspeaker.com.
Dr. van Rijmenam has also authored and co-authored several books. Check them out!
Host:
David Starr is a Principal Azure Solutions Architect in the Marketplace Onboarding, Enablement, and Growth team at Microsoft.
Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
DAVID STARR: Welcome to the Azure for Executives podcast, the show for technology leaders. This podcast covers trends and technologies in industries and how Microsoft Azure is enabling them. Here, you'll hear from thought leaders in various industries and technologies on topics important to you. You'll also learn how to partner with Microsoft to enable your organization and your customers with Microsoft Azure.
Welcome, listeners, to a show about the future of technology. And to talk us through with some of that is Dr. Mark van Rijmenam. And I know that I butchered that [laughs], so maybe you can help me fix that for the listeners. What's the right way to pronounce your name?
DR. MARK VAN RIJMENAM: Hi, David. It's great to be in the show, and the right way to pronounce my name is van Rijmenam, which, even in Dutch, is a difficult name, so you're excused. [laughs]
DAVID: Well, I appreciate that. You're known as The Digital Speaker. So Mark focuses on the Future of Work and how to build the organization of tomorrow using emerging tech; these things include big data analytics, blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), something that we'll get into in a little bit, tokenomics and of course, artificial intelligence, which is playing a big role in how things are evolving. So, welcome to the show.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.
DAVID: So I wonder if we could start off just by asking you to tell us a little bit about you and what you do.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Sure, happy to do so. So I have been an entrepreneur for about a decade now. I am the founder of Datafloq, which is an online content platform around emerging technologies where we talk about big data, blockchain, AI, among others. I'm also the co-founder of Mavin, where we are building a reputation-based authentication protocol to reward good behavior and assure reputation portability across the web. And I am a founding board member of 2Tokens Foundation here in the Netherlands, which is building a roadmap around tokenization. And up till last year, I was flying around the world to help organizations with their digital transformation programs as a keynote speaker. But of course, due to COVID-19, I had to reinvent myself and hence the name The Digital Speaker, but I guess we'll come to that in a little bit.
DAVID: Yeah, that's a really interesting topic; what you've done in response to COVID. So I'm looking forward to that piece of our conversation. But one thing is that you look at various technologies, their impact on business and society; this is sort of the main focus. So let's talk first about the technologies of today. What tech is having a large impact and changing today's paradigms?
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Sure. Well, the technologies that I look at and that have my interests are big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. I've been writing about these topics for many years now. I've done my Ph.D. on these topics. And I find these technologies so fascinating because they have such a massive impact on society, on organizations. And they are really changing how we run our business, how we run our organization. And so from that perspective, big data as well as analytics, Internet of Things, blockchain, AI, we have been dealing with them for some 20 or 30 years and the other ones more recently, for example, blockchain. But we see that the impact that these technologies have is enormous. And we are only at the starting point of how these technologies will impact organizations. And that's what I research is, how can we use these technologies for the benefit of our society, for the benefit of our organization, and to make them useful to us.
DAVID: That’s great. And those are certainly areas of interesting growth, particularly AI and blockchain. But one of the things you mentioned in a previous conversation with me is IoT, the Internet of Things, and IoT is certainly mainstream these days. Microsoft's made a lot of investment in many areas of IoT, and various industrial scenarios are blooming beyond our typical predictive maintenance scenarios, which is valuable but not where the industry's headed. I just want to mention, too, the role of 5G in mobile and maybe get your perspective on that. Because I'll tell you that just recently, my wife and I moved into a new home, and it didn't have cable; it didn't have the internet at all, fiber or anything. So I went on to a 5G hotspot with a cellular carrier, and it worked; it worked for four months. I was actually able to perform my job. And so, with the ubiquity of 5G and IoT, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on that. But one thing you mentioned is your favorite application of IoT, and I wonder if you could just tell us a bit about that.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Sure. So, of course, IoT and 5G I sort of see them as almost part of big data because these are the technologies, especially IoT, that create the massive flow of data that is coming our way. But certainly, the Internet of Things is a fantastic group of technologies. And together with 5G, I think that combination has, especially for enterprises, we will see many enterprise 5G networks really enable factories to do really great things. And one of the things that are of the more complex IoT application that I find very interesting is that one of the dark factories, also called lights-out factories, which are factories that are so automated where they have robots in place. Every process of whatever they are manufacturing, they hardly need any people to run the entire factory. And we saw a large amount of dark factories appear at the start of COVID-19, especially in China, because they recognized that if you don't need any people, you can continue to produce whatever you're producing. And for me, I think the advantage of these kinds of lights-out factories are that as an organization, you can be much more effective and efficient. And we see these lights-out factories happening all over the world, especially also here in the Netherlands.
I read a story the other day about Phillips that they are producing their electric razors with I think about over 100 robots. And they are only nine human quality assurance employees to oversee the entire manufacturing process. So instead of having dozens of employees running a manufacturing process, you can do with less than 10 and run an entire factory. Some factories you can even run just with your iPad, for that matter. So I think that's a fantastic example of how you can apply IoT in very complex environments and have enormous benefits out of it.
DAVID: I actually saw a video recently that highlighted an automated picker robot. So this robot flies along the shelves in a factory and picks items off the shelf for distribution and sale. Have you seen anything like that in person?
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: I've seen the same video, and actually, I use it in my presentations and in my keynotes because it's a fantastic example of how fast technology is growing and that you have these robots now that can actually crawl up the shelves and pick out automatically and autonomously what you want and what you need and deliver it to you. So I think that's a fantastic example of how fast technologies are growing, especially when you see various technologies, in this case, robotics, and AI, and IoT, converging with each other. Then all of a sudden, you have these really fantastic, new opportunities arising.
DAVID: Absolutely. And one other industry that has my interest, in particular, is insurance and its use of IoT specifically; things are changing in terms of policies, particularly property and casualty. So IoT for policy adjustment on the fly, so somebody may be about to skydive, right? [laughter] So they want to go hit their mobile app and get a special policy for the moment and things like that. But there are other IoT-specific things emerging in this space, wearables in particular. I wonder if you could speak to wearables just a little bit.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Yeah, so we've seen wearables already for quite a long time but especially with, again, the technology improving and also becoming smaller, we now have all kinds of smartwatches that we can use that can monitor all kinds of aspects of our body but also other IoT devices that we can use in cars or in our homes, et cetera. We can use the data from the sensors basically to link them up to our, for example, insurance policies. And we've seen already for a couple of years now that car insurance companies use this to monitor, of course with consent, how people are driving and if they are driving correctly, they will receive a lower insurance premium, which I think is an interesting aspect of rewarding good behavior with a lower price to pay for your insurance. And then, of course, you can do it in all kinds of ways if you are leading a healthy life or if you have connected cameras in your home for home insurance, et cetera. Of course, privacy is a very, very important aspect here, but the opportunities are enormous if you can think of a way to reduce the insurance policies for customers and at the same time reward good behavior.
DAVID: Absolutely. One of the things that stands out to me with insurance is that they find themselves, the insurance industry, in a very new and interesting relationship with their customers, that of being sort of the angel on their shoulder, if you will, such that the insurance companies can respond to the data that is being shared, if you will, by people and be the angel on their shoulder to encourage them to healthier habits.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Yeah, absolutely. But I think that there's also a risk here, and I always want to stress it as well that when you have a lot of data at hand, this gives great opportunities but also comes with great responsibilities. So this angel on the shoulder should stay an angel and not become something else [chuckles] where if they have so much data at hand, that they can correctly predict their risks. And of course, insurance also has some -- we should not avoid the people who cannot wear or cannot afford wearables that they have to pay a higher premium. So there's a very thin balance here, but the opportunities are enormous for insurance companies. But we should also be careful. It's a thin line that they have to tread, and I think they should be aware of that as well.
DAVID: That's a great point that we can be interested in a given technology for technology's sake, but the real truth of the matter is that there are ethics behind them. And that's a point well-made.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Yeah, absolutely. I'll point it out a little bit later as well when we talk about AI, but ethics is becoming more and more important. And fortunately, we see this also happening in the world that ethics is getting a more prominent place also at the boardroom to discuss because, without ethics, you can't use technology in a way that's beneficial to your customers. And in the end, we do it for our customers, and we should create products and services that benefit your customers.
DAVID: Absolutely. So one of the things we mentioned at the beginning is something I'd like to turn to, and that's virtual reality. And you mentioned that you have not been on the speaker circuit because there isn't one right now, but I believe you told me in an earlier conversation that you have a virtual reality solution to this problem. So I wonder if you could tell us about that.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Yes, I'm happy to do so. I'm actually very proud of coming up with this innovation, so to say, because I speak about digital, I speak about digital transformation, and I always tell organizations that “You shouldn't only do digital, but you should be digital.” And when I was faced with the start of COVID-19 last year, all of a sudden, I couldn't travel anymore, and I couldn't give my keynotes as I used to do all around the world. I had to reinvent myself. So the better thing to do is to practice what you preach and to become digital yourself. So that's what I did. So I created a concept called The Digital Speaker, and that's basically I have become digital now, and you can book me now as an avatar, as a hologram, or a combination of the two, where my avatar appears as a hologram on stage. And the people online will then see the avatar. And the interesting thing about becoming digital yourself is, as I mentioned earlier, it all of a sudden opens up a ton of new opportunities. So all of a sudden, now I can speak at the same time at multiple locations around the world. I can speak at any location in the world or off this world on the Moon or Mars or whatever. I can speak in any language. I can speak Mandarin, I can speak Arabic, Hindi, German, French, English, whatever. All of a sudden, now this becomes possible when you become digital. So, yeah, The Digital Speaker has also launched a tech journal, which is called the Tech Journal. And here, my digital speaker, which is basically my digital twin, covers the digital world from inside the digital world. And I try to help organizations with what are the latest technologies happening and how they are impacting organizations. But it's not me; it's my digital twin who is hosting the show.
DAVID: That's pretty amazing, actually. And it's cool to hear that you're having success with it because I know that that's relatively -- it's a technology that’s been around for quite a while but only recently are we able to take advantage of it in ways that are meaningful. It's nice that you're able to do that.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: When it comes to virtual reality or even augmented reality, we are really at the starting point now. And for years, the technology wasn't good enough. And now we see finally that the VR headset but also AR headsets have improved to such an extent that they are comfortable to use, the computing power is good enough. And all of a sudden, we can start to do really, really cool things. And the tech that was recently released by Microsoft really, really impressed me.
DAVID: I'll mention that tech, and that's Microsoft Mesh. And that was announced at a recent conference called Ignite. And it's an augmented reality technology. And there were a lot of mixed reality announcements that came out of Microsoft Ignite. But I'll say that Mesh was really the poster child. It was sort of the onstage highlight. And it enables presence and shared experiences on any device; that's what makes it kind of unique. So what I mean by that is sure, there are immersive experiences for virtual meetings and other interactions using 2D, 3D content and for holographic experiences too, being an avatar like you are in your show or in your speaking events. But what's really neat about this is that while Mesh works on HoloLens 2 and VR headsets, it also targets mobile phones, tablets, PCs using any Mesh-enabled applications. So that's why it's a little bit different because some people can be in a VR experience that’s very immersive and others can still communicate and interact. So that's the deal on Microsoft Mesh.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Yeah, I saw the video the other day, and it really impressed me. I think it shows the potential that VR and AR have. And it's certainly one direction that I want to take The Digital Speaker and the Tech Journal to watch, to be at the location of someone giving a presentation but in completely digital form. So we really are at the start of VR and AR, and there's a lot to explore in the coming decade, I think.
DAVID: It's really exciting. We’ve sort of talked about some of the here and now technologies that are being transformative in industry, but now let's switch to thinking about the cusp of innovation, the future of some tech that maybe is just burgeoning right now. And I wonder if you could share, maybe pick a technology that's point of mind for you as we look ahead to future innovation and opportunity.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Well, there are so many [laughs] that are coming our way. But if I have to pick one, it’s certainly quantum computing. I think the impact that quantum computing can have on our society will be mind-blowing, and especially when quantum computing is going to converge with the already existing technology such as artificial intelligence or big data, we'll see so many new opportunities arising and giving us the opportunity to answer and solve some of the major challenges that we face as a species. So I'm super excited about quantum computing and having the first home quantum computer available in the market, although I think it will take a while before we reach that stage.
DAVID: Yeah, for sure. It's definitely a burgeoning technology, if you will, just starting to ramp up. But even so, I'll mention that Azure has some quantum tooling and experiences that people can experience today. So Azure Quantum is an open ecosystem of quantum tech from Microsoft research and partners that enable quantum computing. So to go along with the fact that we have this Azure Quantum service, we have what is typically known as an SDK, but the Quantum Development Kit or QDK. So that's a set of tools to build, debug, and optimize quantum apps and algorithms. You can get that today. And there's an implementation of a specific quantum-focused language that we're calling Q# that comes with the development kit or with the Quantum Development Kit that you can download. Interestingly, you can integrate that with Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and even Jupyter Notebooks. Microsoft is definitely playing in this quantum space. And you're absolutely right: the potential there is almost boundless.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Yeah, I think it's great to see that Microsoft is working on making quantum computing available for the masses, for a larger market because especially, when we talk about quantum computing, apart from the development of the quantum computer itself which is a massive challenge, once we have a workable quantum computing, then we still need also different ways of operating the quantum computing. I know quantum algorithms are different from the standard algorithms that we are used to where a classical algorithm is just a sequence of instructions that are followed up by a classical computer. And a quantum algorithm is almost a step-by-step procedure of what the quantum computer needs to do to perform a certain action. And I think a quantum algorithm is able to really benefit from the characteristics such as quantum superposition or quantum entanglement, and that offers, of course, a lot of new opportunities if we are able to build these advanced quantum algorithms. So, from that perspective, it's good to see that Microsoft is working on that. But I think there's also a lot of work to be done on quantum computing. There's also a lot of work to be done outside the quantum world once we have a quantum computer because there are many implications, of course also for security once we have reached a post-quantum world where quantum computers are the norm, and our existing day-to-day cryptography doesn't really work anymore. Again, these new technologies come with great opportunities, but they come also with great responsibilities. And we need to make sure how to ensure our security is in place once quantum computers are our norm.
DAVID: That's a really great point. And I want to turn our conversation just a little bit because you mentioned earlier that you're a member of a group there in the Netherlands that focuses on tokens and their use in various scenarios, I assume. And you also mentioned tokenomics in your online discourse and in articles that you've written, et cetera. So I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what tokenomics is.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Sure. It's called the 2Tokens Foundation, and here in the Netherlands, we try to help organizations understand tokenomics, understand tokenization. We help them with use cases where they explore new opportunities of how you can use this technology. So if you look at tokens, a token is basically a representation of an asset on a blockchain; that's the broadest explanation that you can give. And tokenomics has done this study of this emerging field of the design of tokens and digital assets using economic incentives, game theory, cryptography, and computer science. So it really brings together everything when it comes to how we can use tokens. And it's about the practice and tools to analyze design and verify tokenized ecosystems. And I think again; this is also a technology that's really at a starting point. Blockchain has been around for about a little bit over a decade now. Everyone knows Bitcoin; everyone knows Ethereum. But now we see more technologies, more networks, more decentralized networks, more tokens appear.
A lot of people probably have heard about NFTs now [chuckles] since Beeple’s sale of almost $70 million for his master artwork. So it is really coming into the news now. And for me, I'm a big fan of tokens, of blockchain technology. I think it's a fundamental technology that really will change how our society runs, especially because tokens have so many advantages. Now we have, of course, security tokens. We have currency tokens such as Bitcoin but also the digital yuan or the digital dollar coming in the future, as well as utility tokens, which are sort of a token that is used as a means to rent within a certain network. These tokens, the benefit of what they have is that they are programmable. So all of a sudden, we can invent rules and governance with the token when we do something. And we saw that perfectly with the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that were used for the sale of artwork, which is so, so much in the news at the moment where you can link ownership to a token, and you can store it on the blockchain. And if you own that token, then you're also the owner of the associated artwork or asset or whatever is linked to that.
DAVID: That's a fascinating topic and probably the simplest and most easy-to-follow explanation of NFTs I've heard. So I really appreciate that. [chuckles] NFTs, you’re right, they're really popular in media, but it seems like nobody really understands what these things are yet.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Well, it's so new and non-fungible tokens; what does that mean?
DAVID: [laughs]
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: It means that you have a token, you can only have one of it, and therefore, it's very useful to be linked to an asset. I think one of the promises of tokenization is the big effect it will have on our economy. And let me explain that because what we'll see happening is if you're an investor, you want to sell a $100 million building in New York, that process generally would take three months, six months. I'm not sure how long [chuckles] these processes take in New York, but generally, I can imagine it takes quite a while. If you tokenize that building, you can sell that building on the secondary market within an instant. So all of a sudden, what this means is if we are able to tokenize all these illiquid assets, we can turn them into liquid assets, and that would mean that we can free up trillions and trillions of dollars which are currently fixed in illiquid assets. All of a sudden, they become liquid, and that will have such a massive impact on our economy. And I'm very curious to see when, first of all, we'll see mass adoption of this because it's still very much at the fringes happening at the moment. And secondly, what will be the impact when we have all of a sudden trillions of dollars of liquidity in the market?
DAVID: That's fascinating, and it's a compelling picture that you're painting there, and I can see how that can fundamentally change an economy. That's amazing. We're getting down to the near end of our conversation. Before we sign off, I want to recognize your books. And I've done some research on these. I'll confess to not having read them [laughter] all the way.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: That’s okay.
DAVID: But I can tell you that people are big fans of your work. So I want to just mention some of these: Think Bigger: Developing a Successful Big Data Strategy for Your Business that, I assume, is sort of democratization of big data. Is that right?
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Yeah. The book was written in 2014. So from that perspective, it was really at the start when big data became a hype in the markets, and it really explains how you can use a data strategy and how you can use data for the benefit of your organization.
DAVID: Okay. And then you were co-author of Blockchain: Transforming Your Business and Our World. That one, I think, is pretty self-evident for listeners. And then there is also The Organisation of Tomorrow, which discusses how AI, in particular blockchain and big data, turn every business into a data organization. So, as for that, in your last book, The Organization of Tomorrow, I had to mention that our own Satya Nadella once said that “Every company is a software company.” You're talking about every company being a data organization. And along with that, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about the democratization of AI in particular. What's happening there, maybe good and bad?
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: So I think what we see happening at the moment is that AI, you can almost say, is infiltrating every part of our society at the moment as well as our organizations. And it has also become so much easier to start using AI to automate your own work. We see this whole movement of low-code or no-code where you can use a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to basically automate your own job, and you don't need to be a developer anymore to be able to do so. So it has really become plug-and-play. And of course, this doesn't mean that you can build advanced algorithms with no-code or low-code; obviously, you need a lot of data and a lot of developers and a lot of hard work to do so. But it has become a lot easier, also a lot cheaper to do so. With relatively little investment in time, money, and energy, you can create a chatbot that can automate at least the first line of calls that come into your call center and already benefit from it. So I think what we see happening here is that artificial intelligence is really having a massive impact on organizations. And, of course, we live in a capitalist world. So if organizations can automate their processes, they will do that to make it more effective and efficient. And you see it as it has become easier to implement and to embed AI within your organization. And that has, of course, as you mentioned, good points and bad points. And especially with AI, when we develop AI, there are so many examples in the world around already that AI was biased for whatever reason. And that's, of course, a very natural thing to happen because we develop these algorithms, we train them with biased data, and they are created by biased developers. And so that's why it's so important to try to get rid of this bias, which is very, very challenging but also very important to do so. If we are going to live in a world where machines and humans are collaborating everywhere, we need to make sure that the algorithms and the AI are doing so in an as much as unbiased way as possible.
DAVID: Absolutely. And if listeners haven't done a little bit of reading about bias and AI, it's definitely worth your time. Bias in AI is definitely real. And it's just one of those things that, as Mark points out, we need to guard against. One thing I'll mention, too, in a previous conversation, you told me about a digital transformation framework that you have for organizations to have a path to become a digital-first organization. I wonder if you could tell us about your digital transformation framework.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Sure, happy to do so. And the digital transformation framework is in my last book, and it's basically a result from my Ph.D., which I did at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, where I looked into how organizations change due to these new technologies, due to big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. And since dissertations are generally very dry to read, I decided to make it a bit easier to read and turn it into a management book. And in this book, I added my digital transformation framework, which I called the D2+A2 model. Why is it D2+A2? Very simple, because there are four steps and these steps are datafy, distribute, analyze, and automate. It basically means that if you want to start with digital transformation within your organization, of course, you can’t start with by digitally transforming your entire business from the start, and you just need to start small in certain areas. And when you do so, if you follow these four steps of first datafying the processes, datafying the customer touchpoints within that process that you want to digitally transform, you can start to create the data that you need because, without data, you can't do any analysis, you can't create an insight. So the datafication is the first step.
Once you have the data, it's time to distribute the data, and you can distribute data either in the cloud, whether this is a hybrid cloud or on-premises cloud or completely in the cloud; it doesn't really matter. But when you use the cloud, it is predominantly used for internal processes, internal data, et cetera. Or you can use blockchain if you want to collaborate with your industry peers and you want to create a more efficient and effective supply chain, for example. Once you have datafied your processes, you’ve created the data, you’ve distributed the data using the cloud or blockchain, you can now start to analyze the data using descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. And I always refer to these as descriptive analytics as looking in the rear-view mirror of your car. It helps you to see what has happened from one second ago to 10 years ago. But if you drive by only looking into your rear-view mirror, you're certainly going to crash. Therefore, you need predictive analytics, which helps you to make predictions of what's going to happen based on all the historical data you have. And you can compare it to your car's navigation system that gives you the most optimal route to your destination, but you still need to drive yourself.
And then, you have prescriptive analytics, which is the final phase of understanding your business, which you can best compare to a self-driving car driving autonomously to your destination. It not only creates predictions, creates scenarios, but then also makes the decisions and moves autonomously. Then the fourth step and the final step is to automate your processes and your customer touchpoints. And you can do this automation with AI or with smart contracts running on a blockchain. And if you follow the steps of datafying, distributing, analyzing, automating, I believe that you can have a clear path of how to digitally transform basically any process within your organization.
DAVID: That's great and something that you've obviously given a lot of thought to. And it makes sense, those sequential steps of digital transformation. That makes it a lot more approachable for folks.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: Well, I hope so because digital transformation is difficult. I believe over 70% of the organizations fail in their digital transformation program. And there are, of course, multiple reasons for that, but I think one of the most important reasons for that is not a good enough understanding of technology and, more importantly, having a thorough understanding across the entire organization of these technologies. And having these four steps can help understand what technology you need for what step and what this technology means for your organization in which process. And that will help you then to digitally transform your organization.
DAVID: Great. Thanks for that. As we're winding down here, I just want to mention that we're going to have a lot of links this week in our show notes, particularly around you and your business. So, people, we'll be able to follow you, thedigitalspeaker.com, obviously, and your online presence in addition to your company, Datafloq, which we didn't even talk about. [laughter]
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: We talked about it briefly. As I mentioned, it is a content platform for people to learn more about these technologies. And there are a couple of hundred authors from around the world on there who share their insights, their knowledge on these topics to help organizations understand digital transformation and digital technologies.
DAVID: Great. Then the last thing I'll mention is that we'll obviously have some Microsoft links up there to technologies that we mentioned in the show, like Quantum and Mesh. So with that, I just want to say what a pleasure it was to have you on the show, and thanks so much for making the time.
DR. VAN RIJMENAM: It's been a pleasure, David. Thanks for having me on the show.
DAVID: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Azure for Executives podcast. We love hearing from you, and if you have suggestions for topics, questions about issues discussed on the show, or other feedback, contact the show host, David Starr or Paul Maher, through the social media links included in the show notes for each episode. We look forward to hearing from you.