Advancing Technology Feed

On April 27, 2018, North Korea and South Korea signed the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula. Two electronic versions—one in English and one in Korean—have been stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The energy industry alone has invested $1 billion in blockchain. And four of the world’s largest automakers want to put blockchain technology in your car.

“Blockchain is right up there with the invention of the Internet,” said Damian Chung, Sr. Director of Cybersecurity Engineering and Development at Dignity Health. Chung thinks blockchain has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, empower businesses to bypass the middle man and even safeguard democracy. “We can apply it infinitely, so it’s here to stay,” Chung said.

Blockchain may lead to unprecedented business agility and help companies save time and money, but few people know how to harness the power of this emerging technology. According to TechCrunch, 14 blockchain job openings exist for every one blockchain developer.

The talent shortage prompted Chung to develop and teach a blockchain course at the University of Advancing Technology, where he is an adjunct professor in the cyber security department.

Students who take Chung’s Summer 2018 blockchain class will be able to:

• Explain the benefits of blockchain and how it differs from cryptocurrencies
• Understand blockchain architecture
• Present use cases to CEOs, devs and non-technical folks
• Design smart contracts
• Produce an architectural proposal for a real-world blockchain application

The 15-week course will cover blockchain transactions, keys, miners, distributed ledgers, blockchain wallets, hash functions, pseudonymity, Solidity, Go, private blockchain on Ethereum, Hyperledger Composer and MultiChain. Even though the class will incorporate some coding, students do not need to be strong programmers to do well.

Chung recommends starting with Blockchain Revolution by Don and Alex Tapscott and watching some YouTube videos.

Students should also capitalize on the power of the magic words, “I am a college student, and I need help.” Reach out to professionals who are already doing cool things with blockchain. Tweet to SEMs who tweet about blockchain. Ask questions on blog posts. Utilize LinkedIn. Create your own internship.

Search for and join Meetups such as Desert Blockchain. Professionals go to Meetups because they want to connect with other innovators, give back to their communities and meet and mentor (and possibly hire!) curious students.

Learning how to develop blockchain solutions will prepare students for careers as disruptors. Studying how blockchain is transforming industries such as banking and real estate will also help students to forecast, visualize and implement change in other industries such as energy, gaming, HR and cosmetics.

Interested in collaborating on a blockchain project with UAT or hosting a blockchain event on campus? Reach out to Ashley: amurry@uat.edu.

UAT Student Brett Butler’s experiences at Disney theme parks, resorts and cruises inspired him to join the maker movement. His dream job? “Working at Disney as an Imagineer!” The term Imagineer combines imagination and engineer. Brett definitely fits that description.

Brett likes to make stuff, which makes him a perfect fit for the Digital Maker and Fabrication (DMF) program here at UAT. Since he arrived on campus in the fall of 2017, Brett has spent hours tinkering away in the UAT Maker Lab. He loves playing with the laser cutter and Formlabs high resolution stereolithography (SLA) 3D printer.

Brett has been playing around with animatronics for years. He is currently building an animatronic elephant that can talk, blink and move its trunk. When Brett was in high school, he participated in the Technology Student Association’s animatronics national championship. His team created a fully animatronic bird that they 3D printed at school. “It had feathers, moved and completely worked,” Brett exclaimed.

Brett’s friends have been pestering him to make another awesome creation using one of the 3D printers at UAT. He accepted their challenge and 3D-printed a working ukulele! Then his girlfriend told him that she wanted a violin.

“I started off with a 3D-modeled violin that I used a photo reference for. From there, I printed it, checked it, printed, checked, and kept repeating until it worked,” Brett explained. “I’m actually going to have to reprint this once because it’s still not exactly perfect,” he added.

Brett turns to his fellow Digital Maker and Fabrication peers and his favorite professor, Joseph Horen, for inspiration and collaboration. “I think DMF is one of the coolest programs here. You can create something and have it in front of you. You can hold it. I think that’s amazing,” he said.

Students in the DMF program graduate with hands-on experience in produce design, product development, industrial design, digital fabrication, 3D modeling and embedded systems programming. Brett appreciates the project-based curriculum and capitalizes on Professor Horen’s offers to explore a topic or problem and then develop a project or solution and well, make it. “Joseph is always helping me figure out problems that I am having, and he’s helped me with some of the electronic components of the elephant,” Brett said.

Big dreams push Brett to keep creating. “UAT is a cool place where I can make just about anything.” Brett will undoubtedly continue to make cool stuff throughout his time at UAT.

Follow UAT on social media to keep up with Brett’s current projects and other cool tech on campus. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Voice recognition is a prominent technology that is being used in more and more places today.

There is voice recognition for recognizing the speaker. This type of voice recognition is used for security (physical access and access to files in computer network). This is also evolving to give specific instructions/information to the speaker as well.

There is voice recognition for translation, as well. This allows for written transcripts of audio events. The benefits are not limited to ADA compliance but useful for translating into other languages and to have a searchable transcript of an event.

In both cases, artificial intelligence (AI) is utilized to have the computer learn and improve on its success of voice recognition.

While everyone has heard of Siri or Alexa for voice recognition, there are innovative uses far beyond the home or smartphone. One recent example is in forensics. A voiceprint can be created in less than two minutes of speech. Crime experts are now using voiceprints for identity of voices from wire taps. This application is unique in that it uses the sound of one’s voice rather than the shape or pattern. That means that a voice match can be found regardless of the language or accent of the person.

At UAT, we implement both of these types of voice recognition in our classes, such as AI, machine learning, and deep learning. Some of the examples of what our students have done are:

• Coding by Voice – This allows visually impaired or those driving to speak their code. The cool part is that when you write a line a code then you can say “check” and it will make sure your syntax is correct or make suggestions on corrections.
• Speech Analysis for Intent – When you send an email, write a blog, or read a news article, the content can be analyzed for intent – positive or negative. This could be used to find only positive new stories. This way, you could filter out the negative stories or blog posts. It could also be used in emailing your boss about a problem. This is important because in the written word, some meaning is lost without the actual interaction and this would help to insure that the message you want to convey has the proper intent.

Voice recognition is just one of the technologies that UAT students master – because we excel at implementing new technology as it occurs. UAT is truly a University of Advancing Technology.

Blog post by Adam Monk, Sales Director, Building Design Services, LLC

In today’s market, whether you are selling cars, software, or real estate you need to pay more attention to your clients needs.

Everyone remembers Henry Ford’s famous comment of “They can have it in any color as long as it’s black,” step back into the early 1900’s and being the first automated car manufacturer, you can get away with that kind of brass customer interaction.

In today’s market, it’s the one of the single biggest aspects to selling your products or services. You really need to take the time to understand your target market, and “what is in it for them” to purchase your goods or services. No detail is too small or to be overlooked, one mistake can have devastating impacts to your bottom line.

As the owner or entrepreneur, put yourself in your client’s shoe’s, how would you want the sale or transaction to take place? That in its self can often be more important than the actual product or service you are selling.

Blog post by Business Technology Professor Mark Smith

In both your professional and personal life you will need to develop your emotional intelligence IQ which is usually referred to as your (EQ).

Communication is key to success in any relationship so it is very important to hone this skill of understanding the emotional state around the person that you are interacting with. An example of this is seeing someone that you want to communicate with is sad, you will naturally change your approach in how you open your conversation with them because you can visibly see they’re sad. The same would go for any other emotional state as you want to have the most pleasant experience when interacting with another person. This is the most basic way of looking at this skill set but this understanding can go much deeper along with being useful.

The importance of emotional leadership

The understanding of emotions and the best way to manage them is a great way to ensure that you will always have a constructive interaction with anyone you meet. Keep in mind you need to be aware of your own emotions and manage them as well. Knowing your own personal tendencies with emotions will allow you to manage them to be a more effective communicator.

Having these skills allows you to effectively understand the best way to approach and communicate with another individual in any situation. This can be a very important tool if you are ever in leadership or managing people as you need to have a grasp on the best way to approach your employees. It can also be very good at diffusing tension between individuals or uplifting people that may be down.

Overall, emotional intelligence is an understanding of how people feel and work, which allows you to be a more effective communicator, motivator or leader.

By: Dr. Mark S. Smith, Business Technology Program Champion

We spend most of our lives gaining knowledge and learning from our experiences. Our wisdom gained is essential for performing a wealth of duties or tasks for various job roles and even entrepreneurship. These skills and abilities are priceless and have been forged by making mistakes, getting educated and experiencing life.

We spend so much time preparing and tooling ourselves for what life may bring hoping for a career that will give us fulfillment and financial security. Having hope is great as it is a positive reinforcement but there is something you can do to give yourself a higher chance of getting where you want to be career wise.

Networking is the key element that every successful person has utilized to get where they want to go. Getting into any company or position it is always more helpful to have someone on the inside of that company advocating for you. Professional networking is something that you should be doing all the time and everywhere you go. Many of these connections and interactions will never be utilized or yield any gain for either party but, the time that it can you have that connection to reach out to. This web of professionals that you build can be utilized for finding a specific job, getting certain information or getting guidance when needed. In general people like to help others and these connections give you and the people in your professional network the ability to do that.

The most successful entrepreneurs and professionals in every industry got where they are from harnessing their network connections. No one is successful on their own they need help and guidance from others to get where they want to be. Successful people recognize this and welcome the aid from their connections. So, get out there on your LinkedIn or any professional networking site and start making connections. The more the merrier as you want the biggest network possible in various industries so you have a wide range of resources to call on when needed.

Along with Business Technology Professor Mark Smith, UAT offers Career Services assistance for students and alumni. Reach out to UAT Career Services Advisor Ashley Murry for help with your resume, interviewing tips and networking skills.

Many UAT students will become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses after graduation. Professor Mark Smith teaches Business Technology courses at UAT and has some great tips for how to operate a business under the lean principles.

What is a lean startup? Lean startup ideals originated by author Eric Ries, which states that if companies invest their time into iteratively building products or services to meet the needs of early customers, they can reduce the market risks and sidestep the need for large amounts of initial project funding and expensive product launches and failures.

When starting an online business, you want to stay lean as you can. This includes expenses, efficiency and processes. Any additional overhead or extra time exerted can cost a first year startup company a chunk of its revenue.

Here are some key things that can be done specifically from on online standpoint to keep expenses down.

Only contract work that needs to be done. Instead of taking on employees that will be a regular fixed cost, contract workers out for a short duration of time. This cost can be deductible and you won’t have to focus accounting resources to pay them. If you’re specifically starting on online business look for the cheapest route for hosting, domain registration and website building. There are many free sites out there that will allow you to do much of this work without having to dig into your account. They might take you a bit more time to setup or create but you will not have extra costs.

Another tip specifically for an online business is to keep in home office for as long as you can. If you’re using your home as the business headquarters, you can deduct a portion of your utilities, rent and internet costs based on the amount of your home you are using.

The greatest costs to a business is labor, space and inventory. The goal is to reduce the cost of labor, space and product inventory as much as possible. That’s why contracted work is helps businesses stay lean. Working from home also saves you money while also limiting space for your inventory so you don’t house to much resources at one time.

Information: Is It Reliable?

Information is not difficult to find. Search engines utilize web databases, reviewers’ blogs and RSS feeds. Practicing research techniques that help you become adept at locating the information you need is easy. But how do you know if the information is accurate or relevant?

So, we need an understanding of the diversity of information sources, which are largely developed through varied beliefs and influenced by social interactions.

To simplify, the information sources must be evidence-based science, innovative technological facts, non-biased ethical standards, and stem from global mindfulness. Below is a list of 5 ways to determine if the information you are gathering is reliable and timely.

1. Examine Sources

• Issue: Where are people getting their information?
• Solution: Use only credible sources

2. Reliable Tech Innovation

• Issue: Are splash page reporting on emerging technologies really in the marketplace?
• Solution: Investigate if the technological innovations are actual or theoretical.

3. Evidence-based Science

• Issue: Are the scientific discoveries evidenced or advertising gimmicks?
• Solution: Investigate if the scientists have published their research findings in credible publications.  Anyone can make a claim.

4. Original Ideas and Experience

• Issue: Accountability in using other’s ideas for your projects.
• Solution: Build upon original works and give credit to the originator and go out in the real world and experience your ideas first hand.

5. Invention

• Issue: Invention is an engineering solution and must be novel and reliable.
• Solution: Invention is a term that is both practical and conceptual. An inventor can be the originator and/or an innovator. Innovators build off what is already in the marketplace. Inventive leaders think about and adopt reliable and lasting solutions, until a new solution comes about.

The above five bullet points are tenets I apply in my own research and teaching.  In fact, information gathering and assimilating has become a bit of “telephone tag.” To resolve this, be proactive in obtaining information from reliable sources and pass them on with credit to the originators.

Here are a few facts that might cause all of us to pause: “According to the poll, conducted by Don Bates of The George Washington University:

• “89 percent of reporters and editors turn to blogs for story research”
• “65 percent look to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn”
• “52 percent use microblogging sites like Twitter”
• “61 percent use Wikipedia.” (Adler, n.d.).

Is Bates’ information reliable? To find out, I would need to go directly to GWU and look for scholarly articles written or published by Bates. I did and it was. But this is only the first step because the second step would be to find other statistics on the same topic from other sources to compare.

In the end, the onus is on us to do our own due diligence and get the facts straight! Difficult? Not too much. It can be a fun challenge.