What exactly does the future hold? Advancements in technology is the hottest topic on the lips and fingertips of people in the know. What better place to get the industry inside information about the latest and greatest cutting edge innovations than from Telsta’s Chief Technology Officer – Vish Nandlall.
Here, TheCarousel.com’s Publisher Robyn Foyster chats with Vish about his role in shaping the future of Telstra, the amazing gadgets he just can’t live without from how he remotely temperature controls his home or virtually accepts package deliveries to his doorstep – without being there! Vish also shares his leading insights into just what the future holds for the post-smartphone era, and we guarantee it’ll blow your mind.
Interviewer: Tell us a little about your role at Telstra?
Vish Nandlall: Hi, my name is Vish Nandlall and I’m the Chief Technology Officer for Telstra. A lot of what we are trying to do is to establish a vision around what is the company going to be in 10 years. So as we move from mobile compute… or rather to mobile compute from mobile telephony we kind of take a look at what going to happen next and that’s where the CTO comes in. It’s talking about really what are the attributes of the network and what is the basis competition going to be and once we understand those things we can start building that technology stack that’s going to drive us into the future.
Interviewer: What are the tech gadgets you can’t live without?
Vish Nandlall: So the tech gadgets I really love, start off I think with my nest thermometer (thermostat) I’ve got a learning thermometer at home, you know while I really enjoy the haptic benefit of coming home and having pleasant temperatures, what I find that’s actually really compelling is the fact that my nest thermometer talks to all my appliances whether it’s my washing machine, whether it’s my computer, it’s finds out how much power they drawing and I think the second thing that’s actually super exciting to me is this whole phenomenon of smart parking. It really is based on this one little sensor and so while everybody’s really focused on that sensor I always like to say you know, “it’s not about that sensor, it’s not about the data that comes from that sensor. It’s not about the thing, it’s about the convenience of finding a parking spot”. If I look at the third thing in terms of devices and gadgets that’s really got me excited in the past little while, I have a drop cam camera in my entryway and a door lock that’s connected to the internet and so when I receive packages from fedex or DHL and they come knocking and I’m not home I can view them on my camera, open the door, let them come in and then close and lock the door behind them.
Interviewer: What tech trends are you seeing in the market at the moment?
Vish Nandlall: You know when I look at the internet things I always try to make the point that it’s really not about the internet it’s not really about the things even, it’s about making sense of the data. You know, sensors are the things that are going to generate data and that data is going to create knowledge and that knowledge is going to drive action. I think the second big trend that I see is something called machine learning. Some people call it artificial intelligence, some people call it deep learning. I started off the industry researching pattern recognition and so I have this infinity for it and empathy for it and over the course of the past I’d say three to four years there have been massive advances in artificial intelligence but what’s happening is that recognition rates from artificial intelligence systems are getting greater and greater accuracy. Third technology is wearables, I really think that we’re going to entering into a post smart phone era with many different types of wearables that people are going to be taking in, mostly into their workplace as well as into their social places.
What gadgets can’t you live without? Tell us below…
