Inbar Lasser-Raab Inbar Lasser-Raab

DUBAI: Dramatic transformations are now gaining momentum across every industry and city, creating a new world of opportunities that are made possible by the Internet of Things (IoT), a top Cisco official said. IoT is defined as the network of devices that are connected to the Internet and can be controlled remotely.

"What we are seeing now is the second generation of Internet. It will transform every person's life around the world. In the first generation, we had often to be in the right country, right city and what we participate with it," John Chambers, executive chairman and former CEO of Cisco, said at the media roundtable on the sidelines of the third annual Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) that took place in Dubai from Dec 6 to Dec 8. The event showcased more than 20 digital cities and connected industry solution deployments made possible by IoT.

In an interview with Kuwait Times, Inbar Lasser-Raab, Vice President, Products & Solutions Marketing - Enterprise Segment, Cisco Systems, spoke about the company's networking solutions, mobility, cloud technology and Internet of Things (IoT) products and solutions. Excerpts:

Kuwait Times: The Internet of Things is rapidly taking over the world. Should we allow it to control our lives?

Inbar Lasser-Raab: When we first started the IoT people said that it will take jobs away because you are going to automate things. This was exactly how the reaction was during the industrial revolution. So one of the main concerns that came up when we started the IoT forum was that if it's going to take jobs away and affect lives negatively. We said these are the same fears that were voiced during the industrial revolution and people were afraid that going from manual to automated is going to take jobs away.

Contrary to the fears of many, it was actually improving the standards of life of people. It's about bringing a better healthcare, batter education system and better processing. There are a lot of opportunities to create new jobs and we feel that it is a positive thing for the world.

KT: What about individual privacy? How will our information be shared?

Inbar Lasser-Raab: That comes a lot with a big concern over generating more data that could help people track you more. The younger generation is more open about technology than the older generations who were more concerned about data. We have to trust the system. Yes there are some concerns but if you don't take that risk technology gives you, you cannot enjoy the advantage. The world is progressing in a better way and this has its concerns.

KT: How secure is our information on the cloud. Who will have access to it, and more importantly, who can have access to it?

Inbar Lasser-Raab: Obviously. You put data on a device and that device can be breached. Similarly, you put a lot of data on the cloud and there is a possibility that people can breach it. So we spend a lot of time to work on security and develop a security system. It is not only the technology but it is also the intelligence that we are collecting around the world to understand the economy and dynamics of the market. It's a race of the smarter. Is it the hacker or the people that are building this technology to protect the data the winner? We hope that we are smart enough to build those technologies to be able to stop the hackers.

We used to say that the biggest hack comes from within and not from outside. I think it's changing but definitely we are going to create policies that can manage what people can access. That's why I keep saying that it is security in the context where I'm in a certain department I will have access to everything I need from my department. But I will have no access to financial department. This is how we set the policy inside the organization in order to control contextually who can access what kind of information and in what time. The biggest security breach happened for companies who didn't have these policies.

KT: Do you think self-driving or driverless cars will ever become a reality?

Inbar Lasser-Raab: Personally, I think everything is possible. But fully self-driving cars may not be possible. McKinsey did some research on transportation on reducing number of car accidents. They found out that 90 percent of accidents are caused by human error. There are a lot of things technology can enable. Technology can help in self-driving cars partially and self-driving cars will help in reducing number of accidents.

KT: No country from the Middle East features in the top 25 countries with IoT devices online. Is this likely to change anytime soon?

Inbar Lasser-Raab: I think there are some bright minds and you can see what Dubai can do. But Dubai is different. The people in Dubai are the same people of the Middle East who have the capability to innovate and to put their effort into action. I think the possibilities are endless and one of the opportunities for the underdeveloped areas is that we build new infrastructure in countries that had none. Their infrastructure can be state-of-the art so that it is really up to the governments to be innovative and think about how they want to switch to new technology and come up as Dubai did.

KT: What about Kuwait?

Inbar Lasser-Raab: When I compare the two countries, I don't see much difference between Dubai and Kuwait. Kuwait is wealthy enough and developed enough that can absolutely build its infrastructure. So if you have any connection in Kuwait to bring the IoT, it will be a great opportunity for Kuwait.

We are planning a few major things. One of them is the IoT steering committee. We have 100 members in this committee and we meet every month. We talk about how to work together and what types of forums to bring in so that we know clearly where we can get involved. We are also investing a lot in this technology as you can see in the IoT system, automation and software building. The third major area is the application building by which we can expose the interfaces and the enterprises and show how we can attract the application developer to come and build applications. We organized a hackathon last week in Dubai so that people could come and invent application for the IoT.

By Islam Al-Sharaa