2022 International Future Computing Summit Presentations

With staff and teams experiencing the benefits of the remote work and play lifestyle, employers and team leaders are trying to find the right balance between lifestyle and productivity.

Susie Ogihara is a Business Analyst and Project Manager for the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory.  Susie also serves as Entertainment Development Council Member of the Urban Land Institute, the largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts.

With a real estate perspective, Susie discusses some of the recent challenges that employers are facing, the need for a strong work/life balance, and what has been learned from hybrid and remote work experiences.

ROBO, The Client Device User Experience is a Priority

Remote work is about more than being able to engage from any place, at any time, and at any location. It is also an enabler for employers that want to build “Remote Office Branch Office” (ROBO) locations so that employees and teams can work from conveniently accessible, centralized locations. To meet these needs, client devices deliver more than a PC at your fingertips or a mobile device in your hands. Clients and users need devices and technologies that are specially suited for the remote work and play lifestyle that are also safe and secure.

Tom Flynn, Chief Technologist of Thin Computing at HP and Justin Galton, Director of Worldwide Business Development for AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) share in-depth expertise on how the industry is adapting to meet the growing needs of remote work and play and what could be helpful for the industry to progress even further.

The Future of Cloud-Based Productivity

Balancing Cloud, Network and Edge For Best User Experience

When users participate in a conference call, stream a blockbuster Hollywood movie, or play their favorite AAA video games on thinly-powered devices, it can be easy to take for granted the underlying technologies that make a great experience. These applications can often depend on a careful mix of cloud, edge, and network technologies which contribute to the full user experience. As the remote work and play lifestyle advances, industry leaders like Intel are looking for more efficient ways to scale compute, memory, and network bandwidth resources.

Sravanthi Kota Venkata is Director of Network and Edge for Intel. With a cloud to client perspective, Sravanthi shares the trends driving the future of remote work and play, the challenges faced by current day systems, and how these can be overcome in the future.

The Future of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Virtual desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a desktop virtualization technology whereby a desktop operating system runs and is managed in a data center. From the user’s perspective, it permits them to use powerful cloud-hosted desktop resources from a wide range of client devices. Desktop as a Service (DAAS) is a similar concept with users connecting remotely through the Internet.

VDI and DAAS are cornerstone technologies for the Remote Work and Play industry. With client, cloud, and network perspectives, this panel talked about their offerings, highlighted user perspectives, and discussed the future of desktop virtualization and the challenges it is working to overcome.

Leading industry speakers included Ziad Lammam, Head of Product for HP Anyware (formerly Teradici), Ruben Spruit, Senior Technologist for Nutanix (formerly CTO of Frame before it was acquired by Nutanix), and Thomas Poppelgaard, CEO of Poppelgaard and Board of Directors member for The International Future Computing Association (TIFCA).

Securing Our Remote Work and Play World

Remote work and play have seen a dramatic expansion in the last few years and there’s no going back. These days, the new security perimeter for small businesses all the way up to enterprise IT departments is the home, and home office. The more devices and data we need to manage for remote work and play, the greater the risk of disruption (financial or otherwise) when things go wrong.

Dennis Mattoon is Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft Research and is also the Co-Chair of the Marketing Workgroup at the Trusted Computing Group. Dennis discusses how now more than ever, hardware-based security and industry standards are critical to mitigating these risks and helping keep our devices secure in this new world.

Remote Collaboration For Event Design

Remote work is usually associated with working from home or away from the office. What if the work or engagement is all about the physical space itself? For example, event designers normally have to interact with suppliers, engineers, and performers on location to make sure a physical space is used to its full potential. Could this type of engagement be done remotely?

Srinivas Krishna, CEO of Geogram, discusses how they are recreating physical spaces in virtual form, and making it possible for people to remotely collaborate on the same physical experiences from all over the world.

How AI Could Enhance Remote Work Meeting Productivity

Remote Work and Play is progressing beyond the confines of talking together in a teleconference format or sharing documents with one other online; it’s redefining the way we work and engage with goal-driven teams. In response, the industry is continuing to innovate and find ways to meet the ongoing needs of employer-employee trust, acknowledgement of work well done, meeting retention, and collaborative goal sharing in both remote and in-person settings.

To support this vision, Juan Rivera, VP of Engineering for Microsoft Teams, discusses how artificial intelligence could one day be used to make meeting collaborations more productive by capturing the nuances of the discussion, by highlighting priority outcomes, and by keeping teams on track – even if an occasional meeting is missed.

What’s Next for Cloud Gaming and Streaming Entertainment

While entertainment and video games can be enjoyed on powerful client devices or full-blown HDTVs, there is also demand for premium experiences on-the-go. This panel discusses the present and developing futures of streaming entertainment and cloud gaming and what this means for the remote work and play industry.

The panel is moderated by Omid Rahmat, Executive Vice President at Jon Peddie Research. Panelists include Phil Eisler, Vice-President and General Manager of Nvidia Geforce NOW, Tamar Shoham, CTO at Beamr, Bruce Grove, Vice-President and General Manager of Mythical Games, and Wanda Meloni, CEO of M2 Insights.

The Futurists Panel

To complete the summit, the final “Futurists Panel” talked about where things are heading and where thinks could be heading in the remote work and play industry from an employers perspective. Each angle and perspective was very unique!

Ernest Spicer, CEO of AgTech OS used the data needs of farming to share how the future of scientific remote collaboration is changing through platforms like Nvidia’s Omniverse and distributed computing resources. Daniel Blair, CEO of Bit Space Development – a creator of immersive learning experiences – talked about how even after the pandemic, their company continues to support remote work and how the industry could make it even more productive for his teams. Kris Bliesner, CEO of Vega Cloud, discussed how their clients are using remote work and remote services with unique security needs, and how the industry could push things even further.