Did you ever wonder what it’s like to put together a Silicon Valley panel event on a white-hot tech topic? You’re about to find out. Sandeep Verma is the co-chair of the June 19 VLAB panel event, “The Proliferation of Artificial Intelligence: Will AI Be the Biggest Disruption in the Next 10 Years?” From home automation to self-driving cars, cognitive learning and AI have the potential to be the most disruptive class of technologies during the next decade. All of this is ushering a new age of “intelligent enterprise,” creating infinite opportunities for both startups and established companies.
Gartner, Inc., projects that the value of AI-derived businesses will reach $3.9 trillion in 2022. This will disrupt practically every aspect of life. This month VLAB panelists will explore the adoption of AI in the enterprise sector, its application for improvement of operations, procurement of business insights and facilitation of decision-making process.
VLAB Blogger Michelle McIntyre recently chatted with Verma to get his philosophy on life and work, why he became a VLAB chair and his one word to describe artificial intelligence’s impact globally.
Michelle: What’s your day job, and what’s your favorite project in the works?
Sandeep: I work in sales strategy and planning division of a leading computer infrastructure provider. My favorite day job project is helping evolve new business models in collaborative selling supported by the right go-to-market strategy, sales coverage and incentives.
Michelle: I see that your team secured the editor of TOPBOTs and representatives from Loop.ai, H20.ai, Facebook AI Research (FAIR) and Nexus Venture Partners for the June 19 panel. How did you convince them to participate? What’s your team’s secret to securing the participants?
Sandeep: Identifying the right emerging technology trend is key. VLAB executive leaders’ coaching and the “four questions process” definitely helps in forcing us to bring out the business disruption taking place. Once we discuss the emerging trend with potential participants and share VLAB history, they see this as a win-win situation and understand the immense benefits they can also get from a VLAB event.
Michelle: You are co-chairing the VLAB panel with Sangam Sangameswara. How and why did you decide to work together? How do you divide up the work?
Sandeep: Sangam has a lot of knowledge in AI trends and has connected with many people working in this space. We met during one of the VLAB pitch meetings and decided to do the event jointly. In the meetings we discuss who will do what and stay in touch over phone and emails on key issues and activities.
Michelle: The secret to AI getting smarter and more powerful seems to have to do with helping robots “see” better (computer vision), connectivity, geospatial data, mobility, “teaching” them new ways to learn among other things. In your opinion what’s the most exciting thing happening in the advancement of AI?
Sandeep: In my view, the AI can be incorporated in many different areas and it will have compounding effect on our work, social interaction, shopping, medical treatment and entertainment, etc… AI will be ubiquitous.
Michelle: What was your first VLAB experience, and what made you step up to plate and decide to co-chair a VLAB panel?
Sandeep: My first VLAB event was on big data and NoSQL. Later I became a co-chair. In this role, you feel more empowered but also have more responsibility. You have the opportunity to expand your professional contacts and learn about the event topic. VLAB events can be demanding and having good volunteers on the team is a must.
Michelle: What’s your philosophy of life and/or work?
Sandeep: A good work-life balance is always good. It is also very important to keep learning new things both at work and outside work. Despite being busy, one has to find time to volunteer and it can be very rewarding.
Tickets for the Jun 19th evening event at the Stanford Faculty Club are available here and at the door.
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VLAB Blogger Michelle McIntyre is an award winning Silicon Valley PR consultant and member of the TEDxSanJoseCA executive team. Follow her on Twitter @FromMichelle. Follow VLAB at @VLAB.