With rapidly evolving technologies and work models, digital transformation poses complex challenges for your cybersecurity infrastructure.

The velocity of our world’s current digital transformation, while necessary, has caused some businesses to accept a higher level of security risk. They don’t want to impede business progress, but truly transformative change requires both digital innovation and cybersecurity. Without security comes the potential for considerable financial and reputational harm.

In fact, 82 percent of IT security and C-suite respondents said they experienced at least one data breach because of digital transformation.

If it’s such a serious issue, why are some businesses not prioritizing security?

Maybe it’s not a priority for this year’s budget, organizations can’t find the right security talent, or there’s a lack of awareness. Others may believe that implementing certain security controls is too difficult or that additional steps are too burdensome.

Whatever the case may be, not prioritizing security leaves vulnerabilities, and understanding the division of responsibilities, especially where cloud providers, third parties, and authentication management are involved, is crucial.

Bolting cybersecurity on later in digital transformation is expensive, and for IT operations to function effectively, security can’t be siloed.

Business is more digital than ever

Cloud migrations, a distributed workforce, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the internetworking of operational technology (OT) expand the attack surface. No industry, field, or size of organization is immune, either.

Even if security is top of mind for your organization, these technologies introduce unforeseen vulnerabilities that your legacy security systems may not be able to prevent.

Cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication

Threat actors attempt a cyberattack every 39 seconds, and cybercrime is the threat that’s most likely to affect Canadian organizations in the coming years. Cyber threats are also largely opportunistic, and the introduction of new technologies presents new vulnerabilities — just what attackers are looking for.

For instance, the time between initial access and ransomware being launched is shrinking, and overall tactics are becoming more advanced. Visibility across your infrastructure is crucial to swift detection and mitigation. Involving security teams in your ongoing digital transformation allows you to consider the evolving threat landscape throughout the change process.

With the increase in cyberattacks comes increased ramifications

Without comprehensive security practices and protocols to fortify your transformative processes, your business faces the possibility of financial damage.

In fact, Canadians have lost $4.9 billion to ransomware over the past year, with the average ransom demand falling between $164,772.27 and $659,246.27. Factor in downtime, and those numbers increase to millions of dollars.

However, money isn’t the only issue to consider. If breached, your organization will likely experience a loss of consumer trust and reputational damage, which makes recovery a significant challenge.

The velocity of digital transformation allows for invigorating advancement but also raises greater security questions. Cyber threats evolve constantly in expense, expanse, and sophistication. Your organization needs resilient security controls, regardless of where data is stored and where employees work from. The right prevention, detection, and response solution is critical.

The post What SOC and Security Teams Want to Know About Digital Transformation appeared first on HiveInnovates.

The cybersecurity field is growing at an incredible rate, but it remains quite young as an industry and science. As the cybersecurity industry exits its adolescence and matures into the robust and comprehensive discipline we need it to be, it must grapple with fundamental questions about what security even means in today’s digital world.

Redefining cybersecurity with David Shipley

There are a lot of voices clamouring to be heard in the dialogue that’s shaping the future of cybersecurity. But in such a rapidly-moving field with such high stakes, the most effective ideas quickly rise to the top, even if they’re unorthodox or of unexpected origin. New Brunswick’s Beauceron Security has secured a well-deserved seat at the forefront of this discussion, and CEO David Shipley is championing a decidedly human approach to digital security.

“I’m an accidental cybersecurity professional,” says Shipley. “This was not my plan. I’ve been a soldier, a newspaper reporter, and a marketer for the University of New Brunswick. When the university was attacked by a hacktivist group, I was the one who realized it, and I used my skills to help with the incident response. As a result of that, the CIO asked me to help lead the university’s cybersecurity defence. What I found there, dealing with hundreds of different incidents every year, was that the root vulnerability behind cyberattacks was rarely, if ever, technology. It was always traced back to people, process, and culture. So, I began thinking about the human side of cyber.”

And so Beauceron Security was born, with a mandate to take this idea of people and culture as the foundation of cybersecurity and turn it into something practical, applicable, and measurable.

Empowered people are secure people, a conversation with Ian MacMillan

“I had experience working at IBM on their flagship enterprise security software, and it was exciting to have the opportunity to build something like that from the ground up with a new human-focused strategy,” says Beauceron Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist Ian MacMillan. “We saw an opportunity to empower individuals, not as a liability that you have to protect, but as an asset to protect organizations. By encouraging people to do their part, we actually see a shift where employees don’t just assume that it’s someone else’s problem, and they now have the tools to act when they find a security concern. The byproduct is that the organization is more secure.”

In short, the Beauceron philosophy represents a seismic shift in how to approach the long-recognized human factor in security. If human behaviour is the most significant vulnerability, you can work to lock that down, and remove it from the equation, but that has never worked. What if, instead, you work on turning the same qualities that make people vulnerable into a key component of security resilience?

Putting bold ideas to the test: Measurable results in the security marketplace

In a recent white paper, Beauceron Security emphasized the quantitative successes they’ve seen relative to its competitors in the field of anti-phishing security. At the heart of the initiative is the Beauceron Platform, which actively motivates employees to engage with security and rewards them for doing so through positive feedback and gamification focused on critical behaviour metrics too often overlooked.

“We know that anti-phishing programs are effective and that we can use them to decrease click rates,” explains Beauceron Data Scientist Nicole Bendrich. “But it’s also important to recognize that click rates aren’t the only metric we should be measuring. It’s very easy to get a false sense of security from a low click rate. That’s why we also include metrics like the ignore rate, which the report rate that aren’t necessarily discussed as often but that are really important because they actually show behaviour.”

With phishing attacks, as with all types of cyberattacks, technology can go a long way to securing the defences. But, with an ever-growing volume of attacks, some percentage will always get through. And it’s exactly the ones that get past the AI that a well-trained and engaged human is best-equipped to recognize and address — If they’re not too scared to do so. “Our goal is to put people in control of technology, empower them to be in control of technology,” says Bendrich. “Sometimes users are just not willing to interact with anything at all because they’re afraid of making a mistake. Rather than not engaging at all, we want them to be able to identify if something is a phishing attack, or if it’s spam, or if it’s an email. Then they can move through the world a little bit less scared and more in control.”

When users are well-trained and steeped in a cybersecurity culture that values engagement and active reporting of attacks, they become less timid, and more vigilant, and they take pride in their own contribution to security. The psychological and emotional character of security is transformed from a weakness into a strength.

“There’s a reason why we chose to name our company and our technology after a sheepdog,” says Shipley. “The idea is to turn people from the passive victims of cybercrime, the sheep, into the active defenders, the sheepdogs. It’s not humans as the last line of defence after technology has failed, but as the first and best, with technology playing a supporting role.”

The post When Cybersecurity Technology Fails, Will the Human Element Hold Strong? appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Is your company prepared for the cybersecurity risks that come with remote work? Learn how to protect your company and how Trend Micro can help.

During the pandemic, cloud adoption was accelerated at a rate never seen before — but moving to the cloud quickly without considering security could be leaving companies vulnerable.

According to a recent study, cloud data centres will process 94 percent of all enterprise workloads in 2021. This is due to the many benefits that the cloud brings to companies, including reduced IT costs, automated upgrades, scalability, collaboration efficiency, and flexible work practices — like working from home — which are all key during a pandemic.

This shift to remote work during the pandemic has resulted in a 238 percent increase in global cyberattacks. This statistic comes from a recent report released by HP and KuppingerCole, an international, independent analyst firm, which assessed remote work and its cyber risks.

Holding businesses responsible for their own security

As organizations embrace cloud digital transformation, there are also cyber risks to consider.

“A common misconception is the fact that security is the cloud service provider’s responsibility,” says Antoine Saikaley, the Canada Technical Director at Trend Micro, a cybersecurity giant that currently protects over 500,000 enterprise and commercial organizations. “Organizations using the cloud need to understand that security is actually their responsibility and need to ensure that their applications and data are secure.”

The good news is that tools exist to make cloud security more integrated, easier, and a lot more effective than many IT leaders believe. Finding the right security partner now is more important than ever.

While it protects people and organizations from all over the world, Trend Micro is also deeply invested in Canada — with over 300 Canadian employees in four locations and three out of seven of its cloud services being researched and developed locally. This allows Canadian businesses to protect their existing on-premise infrastructure and devices, as well as their cloud environments — all under one platform.

Every employee plays a role in security

“Businesses that are unprepared for remote work may see an increased risk of corporate or customer data being stolen by hackers,” says Saikaley. “For example, security management consoles that relied on devices being connected inside the network perimeter will lose cyber threat visibility and control with devices at home with no connection to the corporate network.”

A recent study by Trend Micro, Cyber Risk Index 2021, found that 84 percent of North American organizations are likely to experience a data breach of customer records within the next 12 months.

As well, the study from HP found that 70 percent of workers will access their work devices for personal use due to remote work — including for gaming, using streaming services, and online learning, or homework — which will further put these devices, and the company itself, at risk for an attack.

In addition, Saikaley points out that over 90 percent of breaches start with a phishing email and notes the importance of companies having an awareness strategy to ensure that employees gain an understanding of what phishing looks like.

Phishing attacks are designed to trick victims into revealing personal information, like work passwords, and can lead to exposing devices to harmful ransomware or viruses, impacting company finances and brand reputation. These attacks can mimic websites or emails that you already access, like streaming sites, gaming sites, or even banking sites. As a result, attackers can gain access to private, sensitive information from companies through their employees.

This means it’s important for an organization to train everyone, whether they’re a security leader, an employee working at home, or even a board member, on cybersecurity risks.

How trend micro can help

A challenge many organizations face is that the cloud isn’t simple, and many of the technologies that make up the cloud are new, with new features being deployed all the time. Understanding how these work and — more importantly — how to secure them can be difficult.

Utilizing a security platform approach can help build your cloud to be more secure, but educating your architects and administrators will also help. One key area is hardening your cloud account credentials, as these will be regularly targeted by malicious actors. Using multi-factor authentication to access all accounts can minimize this risk tremendously.

“The Cloud One platform is ideal for organizations or businesses that are migrating to the cloud,” says Saikaley. “It provides enhanced visibility, detection, and response, and ensures that regulated workloads are meeting compliance and are protected, and that infrastructure misconfigurations are remediated promptly.” While businesses must modernize with software as a service (SaaS) based deployments to provide protection, they also need to supplement that security by achieving user, device, and cloud application risk insight through continuous risk monitoring such as with Trend Micro’s Zero Trust Risk Insights service — plus additional visibility, detection, and response.

With an increasing amount of cyber threats every day, it’s important for businesses to be prepared for any risks they might face. By combining a strong security strategy that encompasses all levels of an organization, a market-leading cybersecurity platform and world-class threat research, businesses can become more resilient in the new post-pandemic world.

The post Who Protects the Cloud? And Why Your Business Should Care appeared first on HiveInnovates.

As one thinks about the impact and costs of a data breach within their organization, it can be more expansive than most initial estimates. It goes beyond repairing databases and other infrastructure or taking steps to remediate and fortify an organization’s security posture. For many sectors of the economy, there are regulatory and public opinion implications that may be significantly more difficult to fix or address. If there is a financial loss due to a data breach/ransomware attack, traditional insurance coverage likely will not provide appropriate financial reparations.

What coverage does cyber insurance provide? 

Regardless of the legal and regulatory requirements, organizations have an obligation to keep their customer data protected. In the case of Protected Health Information (PHI) & Personally Identifiable Information (PII)), companies may face potential liability if the information is exposed in a data breach. A cyber-insurance policy will generally protect companies against liabilities and will reimburse for expenses related to a data breach (may include: legal costs, a digital forensics investigation /Incident Response, and crisis management). There are different kinds of policy coverages, it is important to work with your insurance policy stakeholders to determine you have the right cyber coverage in place.

Current cyber insurance market conditions

The threat landscape globally for organizational data has never been more at risk. For every dollar spent on cyber coverage, the insurance industry is paying our three dollars – in short, it’s a losing proposition. Insurance companies, in many cases, are partnering with clients to ensure that data protection and cyber security are top of mind for corporate policy-makers. The industry may support activities such as vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to ensure that a standardized security posture is in place. Given the current financial landscape for cyber insurance coverage insurance companies are faced with either supporting customers to ensure that rigorous data security measures are in place or they exit the market. 

At the end of the day the customer must own the responsibility of providing reasonable and effective security measures in protecting organizational and client data and it will be incumbent on the insurance industry to practice due diligence in assessing whether an existing or potential customer is permitted to purchase a cyber insurance policy. It is important to note, this is an evolving model where transparency and framework compliance will help mitigate risk and provide a value proposition to both the insurance company and the customer.

The post What Is Cyber Insurance and Why You Need It appeared first on HiveInnovates.

This National Cybersecurity Awareness Mo­­nth, what message do you have for fellow business leaders?

If I can emphasize one thing it’s that cybersecurity isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

I went on the record saying that 2021 will be the most profound year in cybersecurity in our global history, and it’s no secret that the challenges we’ve faced in the cybersecurity community so far this year have been unprecedented and demanding. While we’ve seen a huge shift over the past year in prioritizing cybersecurity within corporations and even at the federal level of government, we’re still not where we need to be.

I’ve got a question for business leaders – if you’re not investing in a Managed Security Services Provider, a team that’s solely dedicated to the day-to-day defence of your infrastructure, why aren’t you? An investment in cybersecurity is an investment in your employees, your customers, and your company’s reputation.

Today, cybersecurity isn’t just a way to protect and prepare an organization for a potential threat, it’s one of the best business drivers an enterprise can have in its arsenal.

Should the everyday individual be concerned with the topic of cybersecurity?

Absolutely, and I mean every individual. It’s been wild to see the digital transformations happening across all industries over the past few years but think about the progressions when it comes to social media. I mean, we’ve got Gen Z-ers making millions on social platforms like TikTok and Instagram – think what would happen to their self-created businesses if something were to happen to their accounts.

Enterprises and organizations are not the only ones at risk when it comes to cyber-attacks, and that’s a mentality we need to emphasize. A lot of people say, “Why me? I’m just an everyday person. What would a hacker want from me?” Hackers don’t discriminate. They don’t care if you’re a 16-year-old on TikTok, a small local mom-and-pop shop, or a multi-million-dollar enterprise, if you’re online, you’re at risk of being targeted.

Education on good cyber hygiene and safe internet practices need to be prioritized at home, in schools, and in corporations of all sectors and sizes. Just like you previously mentioned, October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and at Herjavec Group it’s our goal to provide everyone with resources, tips, and training on how we can all do our part to be cyber smart!

 As our ecosystems continue to accelerate their digital and cloud transformations, what steps can government take to ensure we improve security outcomes?

Innovative, modernized, resilient, agile, and citizen-centered transformations are what governments need to focus on. We must break away from outdated methods and perspectives – especially in government sectors. Cybersecurity is constantly evolving, and it’s imperative we evolve with it. The same way you can’t try to make old business models work in conjunction with new technology, archaic methods of cybersecurity won’t cut it when defending against modern threats.

When it comes to digital transformations, cloud computing is going to be huge over the next few years, and for most, this is a fairly new concept to grasp – it’s complex and the vulnerabilities and threats vary depending on the specific needs and uses of each organization and individual. Therefore, hiring top industry talent is a crucial step that governments need to be taking.

Over the course of the past year, it’s been great to see governments putting more resources into cybersecurity, because like I mentioned, it’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity! Governments need to tap into external ecosystems to support their digital transformation needs by working with the private sector and cybersecurity firms.

With the rise in nation state and ransomware attacks, we’ve seen throughout the course of the pandemic, there’s too much on the line. The best way to protect our citizens, our data, and our nation is to modernize our cybersecurity approaches and build a more resilient, scalable, and secure infrastructure.

Cybersecurity is often seen in terms of the cost of mitigation. How is this perception changing and how can businesses leverage cybersecurity as a primary business driver?

A resilient cyber-defence system is an expectation from a customer standpoint in every industry, and it should be from a business standpoint as well. When it comes to business, it’s all about the customer. It’s your job to build that trust and ensure your customers feel secure. If there’s a choice between a company with a resilient cyber-defence program and one without, who do you think the customer is going to go with? The worst time to decide how to handle any kind of cyber-attack is after it’s happened, so you need to make sure your customers know they’re in good hands if something happens and their personal data is on the line.

The perception of cybersecurity as a business driver is changing in a positive way, but we need to continue to drive that home. You should always be thinking about what you can do to build trust with your customers. So, not only should you deploy a cyber-defence program within your business, but you should also educate your customers on exactly what having a resilient cyber-defence program means:

Transparency is key. A lot of people may not know exactly how cybersecurity works and what can happen if there isn’t a secure structure in place. Cybersecurity isn’t just an IT problem, it’s something that everyone needs to care about, and as a business leader, it’s your job to drive that home and sell it.

18 years on from the founding of the Herjavec Group, what has your extensive journey to the top of the cybersecurity and entrepreneurship worlds taught you? 

When it comes to cybersecurity, I’ve learned that the only thing that stays the same is constant change. Change in environment, threat landscape, technology, threat actors, solutions – you name it. We must always be looking for what’s next and continue to scale to the needs and demands of our customers and environment. Successful cybersecurity will always require a method that balances an innovative, cutting-edge approach with data-driven, proven best practices.

When it comes to entrepreneurship – dream big, and once you’ve done that, dream bigger. But also know that dreaming alone isn’t enough. Be willing to put in the work to make those big dreams a reality. If you know me, you know I love cars and I love golf, but give me a free afternoon and I’d rather work than race cars, play golf, or do anything else.

I mean look at those numbers. It’s been 18 years of persistent hard work, sacrifice, and dedication to get Herjavec Group to where it is today – it doesn’t happen overnight. But if you’re willing to put in 120% day in and day out, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish.

 In the ‘State of Ransomware 2021’ report, the average cost of recovery associated with a ransomware attack in 2021 has nearly doubled since last year. Why do you think ransomware attacks have become more targeted and sophisticated?

In simple terms, ransomware attacks have become more targeted and sophisticated because the events of the past 18 months have combined to create the perfect cyber threat storm. Cyber criminals aren’t dumb. They’re motivated by money and can see a predatory opportunity when it presents itself. Unfortunately, ransomware is both a lucrative business for skilled hackers and the perfect malware to take advantage of situations like the pandemic and the rapid digital transformation that most enterprises and individuals experienced. As technology continues to become more advanced, so do hacker’s methods of attack.

The pandemic has opened doors for hackers – they take advantage of vulnerable situations like COVID-19. With so many of us working remotely, we don’t have the same protections we once did in an office building. We’ve seen a transition of larger scale, more generic automated attacks to more personalized, hands-on targeted attacks. Take phishing emails for example – all it takes is clicking on a link or an attachment for your data to be compromised. Simple yet sophisticated methods like this take advantage of the fear surrounding the pandemic and the growing attack surface due to remote work environments. As a result, the frequency and cost of ransomware attacks have skyrocketed.

For businesses concerned about the destructive potential of ransomware attacks, what do you suggest is the best response to active incidents and their prevention in future?

A huge misconception when it comes to cybersecurity is that having a resilient cyber-defence program and team in place will eliminate any risk of a breach occurring. The truth is, there is no such thing as a perfect cybersecurity program. This is to say that even with the most resilient program in place, there is still a risk of a breach. What differentiates a truly comprehensive cybersecurity program is not only its ability to prevent an attack, but how quickly it is able to detect, respond to, and remediate a successful attack. Like I said before, you can’t figure out your strategy on how to handle an attack after it’s already happened, you have to be prepared 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

When it comes to cybersecurity, humans need to be trained. I always say individuals can either be your greatest first line of defense or your weakest link. Business leaders need to make sure their teams are properly educated so every person on their team at every level of the organization practices good cyber hygiene and knows how to identify and deal with a potential breach. Employ awareness training for your teams at least a couple of times a year. Make sure your employees know how to spot a “phishing” email and other malicious activity. And implement companywide policies and processes so everyone knows exactly what to do if they experience a breach. From an individual standpoint, it’s important to stay on top of mundane tasks. Run regular data backups and antivirus scans on your devices, make sure you’ve got multifactor authentication set up on all platforms you have access to, update your passwords regularly, and always be on high alert.

When it comes to links and attachments in emails, ask yourself a few key questions before engaging:

The more prepared each of us is, the more protected we will be.

The post Q&A with Robert Herjavec appeared first on HiveInnovates.

How did you get involved in the world of fintech?

Many moons ago, I started a fintech company before the industry was even called fintech. I became involved in the hedge fund industry by investing and raising money for some fintech startups when the industry was still very young. I guess I was in the right place at the right time when the digital disruption of the financial sector picked up speed. We still have a long way to go to change the financial industry and achieve its real potential. We want fintech to be like the air we breathe – for it to be all around us, without us needing to think about it. That is the ultimate future of fintech.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shifted the way people think about and manage their money. How is this impacting different industries?

The pandemic has dramatically changed all industries. One of the fintech sectors that has benefited is the challenger bank industry, as people were forced to find a way to bank without going to an actual building.

Many consumers are hesitant to adopt fintech. What are ways that we are already interacting with this technology that we might not be aware of?

Fintech is everywhere — even before we coined the phrase “fintech.” Some people may choose not to use a challenger bank, for instance, but I am certain they are exposed to fintech, whether they want to be or not. Fintech is so much broader than the known business-to-consumer startups that some might associate with the industry. If you go to withdraw money from an ATM, there is fintech behind the scenes enabling this process. Even paying and sending money involves fintech. To round it off, every incumbent bank uses fintech to keep up with the digital transformation continuously happening and accelerating.

As a venture capitalist, what do you look for in a startup?

I look for startups with great teams that know how to execute and overcome constant challenges. Of course, I always look to see if the company has real and strong customer traction. That is the proof that their solutions are genuinely helping people.

What advice do you have for fintech entrepreneurs looking to gain exposure and scale?

Succeeding as a fintech is like cake — you need many good ingredients to make it tasty. Beyond assembling a great team, it is important to focus on what the customer needs. This is validated by gaining customers. However, the crucial element is strengthening your brand. If you have a strong brand, make sure it’s noticed, or you’re wasting an opportunity to show the world what you have to offer. Believe me, every successful startup understands just how important a strong and known brand is to their success.

The post Spiros Margaris on the World of Fintech appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Industry has many problems to solve — some simple, some complex. Trying to solve these on one’s own can be costly, time-consuming, and frustrating. That’s why applied research partnerships with academic institutions can be indispensable to a company’s research and development (R&D) strategy.

Saskatchewan Polytechnic is an applied education and research institution located in Saskatchewan that offers training across multiple areas through over 150 academic programs. It also offers industry partnerships, where applied research partners can have access to a wide network of connections, funding, faculty experience, and exceptional facilities.

One of those exceptional facilities is the Digital Integration Centre of Excellence (DICE), a research lab within Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s School of Information and Communication Technology. “DICE works collaboratively with multiple programs to bring digital solutions for various industrial partners with a core focus on data, including data integrity, transmission, analysis, and storage,” says Dr. Terry Peckham, Director and Research Chair of DICE.

Three main differentiators to this industry partnership model

Three main factors differentiate Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s industry partnership model. The first is the ability to help solve a problem by pulling from any program or faculty for expertise. “This partnership approach is especially beneficial to industries facing complex problems,” says Dr. Peckham. “When you’re no longer an island or one person but a collaboration of various groups of various levels and sets of expertise, you’re in a better position to find solutions to these problems.”

The second differentiator has to do with the institution’s intellectual property (IP) policy. “All IP stays within industry, meaning industry partners get to keep the full IP on the solutions created for them at Saskatchewan Polytechnic. I think that’s an attractive feature for them,” says Dr. Peckham.

The third differentiator is the opportunity for students to be involved in applied research projects and to solve real-world problems. “We’re taking what they’ve learned in the classroom and building on it,” says Dr. Peckham. Many students end up getting hired by the industry partner. “There’s a demand in industry right now for IT talent, and companies have realized that we’re not a bad spot to pick up some good, qualified people,” says Dr. Peckham.

Collaboration across fields and sectors is a top priority and way of working at Saskatchewan Polytechnic. With access to resources, talent, and testing, Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s research partners can find ways to capture new business opportunities, solve everyday problems, and ensure a pipeline of future talent.

The post How Saskatchewan Polytechnic Helps Industry Solve Problems appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Sean Neely

CEO, Brainbox AI

Sam Ramadori

CBDO, Brainbox AI

Jean-Simon Venne

CTO, Brainbox AI

More than ever, the power of AI is becoming available to businesses and innovators everywhere as a tool in addressing some of the world’s biggest challenges. Factors such as the declining cost of cloud computing, the improved accessibility of development resources, and the rapidly-increasing number of university graduates focused on AI are driving nimble product development and major technological advancements. For start-ups such as BrainBox AI, this innovation ecosystem has allowed it to introduce autonomous AI into commercial buildings to significantly reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Could AI-driven autonomous buildings play a critical role in our ability to slow down climate change? For BrainBox AI, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

Forget the autonomous car, it’s all about the autonomous building

It’s expected that 10 million self-driving cars will be on the road in the U.S. alone by 2020. And yet, just as the transportation industry is evolving dramatically, other aspects of our day-to-day experience remain relatively unchanged. Despite the fact the buildings are one of the top climate change contributors, we haven’t seen revolutionary innovation in the real estate sector since the invention of the thermostat about 130 years ago. Could AI-driven autonomous buildings, whether in retail, hotels, schools, or office buildings, play a critical role in our ability to slow down climate change? For BrainBox AI, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

The impact of AI-enabled technologies

BrainBox AI uses deep learning, cloud-based computing, and a proprietary process to support a 24/7 self-operating building HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system that requires no human intervention and enables maximum energy efficiency. BrainBox AI’s technology moves buildings from being reactive to pre-emptive in the management of their HVAC systems, with a plug-and-play solution that connects directly to a building regardless of the HVAC system brand, the building size, or the daily operating schedule. To date, BrainBox AI has demonstrated its ability to generate a 25%–35% reduction in total energy costs in less than three months, improve occupant comfort by 60%, and decrease the carbon footprint of buildings by 20%–40%.

The post Utilizing AI in the Fight Against Climate Change appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scorecard performance for corporations continues its rise as the new metric for investors and the public alike. Assets with strong ESG scores are the fastest-growing investment opportunities across the globe as ESG performance has become one of the best indicators for future growth.

So how are companies supposed to link their corporate financial performance to their ESG performance? It starts with collecting irrefutable data, having the ability to process large data sets and driving smart decisions, followed by giving shareholders and investors the required level of transparency into those reports. 

AI-enabled systems running on immutable and encrypted data sets lead to safe sharing of private business data and homomorphic encryption for performance analysis across multiple enterprises, resulting in unbiased reporting as the data has never been altered.

AI is the ability of a computer to process a vast amount of information for you, make decisions, and take (and/or advise you to take) appropriate action.

Dr. Peter Diamandis

TerraHub recognized an opportunity in oil and gas and created a platform to facilitate the vast and distributed business model of this industry. This platform — Sync — provides the ability for technology to promote data integrity from machine-to-machine communication.

Working on encrypted data, without decrypting the data itself can show how a company scores across all ESG standards, compares to their peers and benchmarks year-over-year growth. In addition to artificial intelligence, private blockchain technology aggregates and validates core business transactions to unlock the benefits of industry-wide ESG collaboration. Together, companies operating in a specific geographical area can gain greater alignment in working with vendors that meet their environment, health, safety, and social values. Together they can publish climate change mitigation and adaptation metrics as well as greenhouse gas emissions that can be independently audited.

Complex industries, such as energy, construction, manufacturing, and others, have an opportunity to showcase their ESG performance with real-time metrics across all ESG frameworks. The cost and amount of effort that comes with this type of reporting, is significantly simplified through machine-to-machine communication, process automation, intelligent contracts, and predictive reports powered by artificial intelligence.

The post Driving ESG Improvement with AI appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Don Tapscott is a Canadian business executive, author, consultant, and speaker, who specializes in business strategy, organizational transformation and the role of technology in business and society. He is the CEO of the Tapscott Group and the co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute.

Mediaplanet: What has been the most exciting recent development in blockchain?

Don Tapscott: In the past year we have seen more widespread enterprise adoption of blockchain than ever before. Many of the enterprise innovations have focused on financial services and supply chain management, where they’re helping to build a frictionless global market. However, I think the innovations in privacy and identity management have been especially notable. This is the second era of the internet, and it’s going to fundamentally change the way we conduct ourselves online. 

What opportunities does blockchain open in the finance sector?

Blockchain serves as a native medium for value, allowing us to build trust and transact digitally without the need for large intermediaries. That has a particularly notable impact on things like payments and remittances, for example, but it’s also turning venture capital upside down through an innovation called “initial coin offerings.” Projects can now raise capital while bypassing a lot of the traditional intermediaries, which has enormous implications for banking. 

How will blockchain technologies promote innovation in areas like financial technologies?

Blockchain provides a foundational layer for other forms of technology. For instance, if you’re going to incorporate AI into finance, you will want a secure platform with which that AI might make transactions or share data. Blockchain provides that platform.

What are the key challenges associated with integrating blockchain into an organization?

At the Blockchain Research Institute a lot of our research focuses on the implementation hurdles that companies face. Often, embracing blockchain requires reimagining the way your company adds value, and how a peer-to-peer value exchange might impact that. The technology is also immature, although there is significant progress weekly.

How can firms effectively navigate these challenges?

It starts at the leadership level, by identifying the specific opportunities for blockchain to improve your business. Collaboration across companies and industries is absolutely crucial. Many of the companies we work with are having constant conversation with their competitors, in the interest of establishing the standards necessary for mass adoption of the technology. Which is why FedEx, UPS, and DHL are coordinating their blockchain efforts.

What impact will blockchain have on data privacy?

All the data you create in your everyday life constitutes what you might call a “digital identity.” Right now, that data — and the money that can be made off of it — is expropriated by a few large companies. Using blockchain, we can build a “self-sovereign identity,” where the data you create is collected and secured in a sort of “digital black box,” owned by you. That means the individual controls, benefits from, and even profits from, their own digital footprint.

How do you see blockchain shaping the Canadian economy in the years to come?

Canada is already emerging as a global leader in blockchain, not least because of our strong financial system and thriving tech sector. But there are impediments. Regulators and governments are slow to understand and could do better to encourage the evolution of this technology. Government leaders seem more focused on AI, which is a mistake. Rather, view AI and blockchain as a couple.

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