The World Internet Developer Summit, hosted by the Internet Society Hong Kong, was held last week at Cyberport and Hong Kong Science Park, two main technology centers in Hong Kong.
This seminar was jam-packed with guest speakers from around the world, all in attendance to educate and inform entrepreneurs about big data and the use of the cloud. With Hong Kong coming in third after Silicon Valley and New York as a tech center, this seminar was a great push in the right direction, with speakers from Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blackberry and many more.
From Ben Luk describing the evolution of Google Maps to Josh Aberant discussing the unique personalization and privacy of Twitter, the first day of WIDS at Cyberport was interactive and entertaining, speakers alighting multiple screens with flashy and informative presentations. Dr. Lei Gao’s presentation truly spoke to the topic of big data, dissecting LinkedIn’s formula of categorizing and moving around large data sets in order to keep the website operating smoothly.
While big data was the main point of discussion, many audience members were highly concerned about the relationship of privacy and security between businesses and consumers. It has become common knowledge that personal information on websites have been shared and exposed to third parties without the permission of the customer. The panel participants, composed of Aberant, Matt Valentine and SC Leung, tried their best to answer the fervent security questions, highlighting the importance of thinking about security issues from day one when programming, instead of leaving it as an afterthought. Big data can be beneficial in that it can help businesses and startups function easier and faster, but security still remains a legitimate question as more companies opt in to use this kind of data-saving technique.
Day two was held in the beautifully blimp-shaped Charles K.Kao Auditorium at Hong Kong Science Park. Brit Selvitelle, an early engineer at Twitter, shared his experience at the company comparing it to his time working on the Obama campaign. The technological shifts that occurred between both events demonstrated how rapidly technology has changed overtime. This fact was only highlighted when Valentine displayed Windows Azure, cloud computing software meant to simplify tasks when developing a startup. Lasse Koskela mentioned the ability to move faster and get feedback sooner with the use of the cloud, two aspects that could affect the progress of a startup.
Big data and cloud services enable programmers and designers to work more efficiently, computers quickly computing lines of code that would take hours to do manually. Deployment was also a topic of discussion, an important part of improving businesses as quick as possible. While most of the speakers spoke about techniques and strategies to strengthen startups, they equally pushed forward the importance of teamwork and communication, stressing the need to find others that not only share the same passion but also the same drive. Without a compatible team, progress is much harder to achieve, but with the right people, the possibilities are endless.
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