Opening General Session - Tuesday, February 1st
Alan Shen, CTO Unify Square, a Unisys company, will present the Opening General Session address at the UNITE 2021 Conference, session 3044. His topic will be “The Practical Case for Modernizing Collaboration.”
The use case for modernizing enterprise collaboration tends to focus on end user experience (EUX) benefits. However, there’s another important justification for modernizing team collaboration: business continuity. As we enter another pandemic downturn, it’s become clear that businesses will live with coronavirus for many years to come. One thing this pandemic has taught us is that we can’t predict anything.
During this session, Alan Shen will share how Unify Square helped customers adapt when the pandemic hit and how we’re helping customers prepare for the reality of living with the pandemic. How do we accommodate users who might work from home for months at a time? How do we onboard employees who can’t come into the office? How do we keep office collaboration spaces functional when they’re so infrequently used? How do we do all of this without putting sensitive corporate data at undue risk?
These are the topics we’ll cover as we navigate the nuts and bolts of keeping users collaborating during the ever changing pandemic.
Unify Square – a Unisys Company
Alan leads Unisys Digital Workplace technical strategy covering technologies such as UC, collaboration security, and modern workplace. Building on his former role as head of Unify Square consulting, Alan brings a wealth of customer experience to bear as he steers ongoing technology investments across the company’s consulting, SaaS, and managed services offerings. He played a key role in introducing key AI/ML technologies into PowerSuite.
Alan also brings over 10 years of Microsoft experience as a Program Manager in the Mobility, Networking, and Skype for Business groups. He designed the original media traversal solution for Microsoft’s UC stack, a technology that continues to be used in Microsoft Teams.
Alan is a regular speaker at industry events. In his free time, Alan enjoys conducting the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra and managing a real estate business.
Wednesday General Session - February 2nd
Jay Modh, Founder & CEO, Intuitive.Cloud and IntuitiveVC, will present the Wednesday General Session address at the UNITE 2021 Conference, session 4043. His topic is "Cloud Security Infrastructure and Code".
By now 90%+ of Enterprises have considered cloud and have gone through Cloud Readiness or a Cloud Feasibility Study or a Cloud TCO and Cloud Adoption journey. However, many of them are still not very mature with Security in Cloud - Outside-in and Inside-out from infrastructure to Application/Code to Data to Compliance, Governance and Risk.
This session will identify and provide guidance on the factors that will lead to a successful and SECURE Cloud Adoption/Migration/Transformation.
Intuitive.Cloud & IntuitiveVC
A Business and Technology leader with extensive and diverse experience in advanced technology solutions and business services. Extensive technology background (design, implementation and management) building state-of-the-art IT infrastructures (Cloud, SDDC, SDx, Data Centers) for global enterprises meeting key technical and business objectives of performance, security, disaster recovery, business continuity, higher ROI and lower TCO.
Focused in diversified strategic investments in Innovative & Emerging Technology Startups in B2B & B2B2C around Cloud, Security, IoT, Blockchain & FinTech enabled by AI/ML & Deep Learning. Helping start-ups with funding (Pre-Series-A to Series-C), global go-to-market & market-growth strategy and value creation.
Jay has a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering from Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University, Gujarat, India, and a Master’s Degree in Computer Networks and Information Systems from the Stevens Institute of Technology.
Thursday General Session - February 3rd
Per Bauer, Director of Solution Services at HelpSystems, will present the Thursday General Session address at the UNITE 2021 Conference, session 4025. His topic will be "Cloud Cost Optimization."
When organizations started to provision or migrate applications to the cloud, cost management was usually not something they paid a lot of attention to. The main drivers were things like application agility, operational assurance and alignment of strategic focus. Or they might have thought that moving to the cloud and reducing their capital expenditure would automatically save them money.
But since then many have come to realize that without cost management for their cloud services, they have accomplished the opposite and that their bill for IT actually has increased. Several surveys have identified cloud cost management as one of the top priorities and some organizations have even considered repatriating cloud workloads.
In this session we will look at the different opportunities for reducing cloud cost and how to prioritize among them.
Director of Solution Services,
HelpSystems
As Director of Solution Services, Per is responsible for the delivery of HelpSystems services to customers worldwide. He conceived and is the author of our Capacity Optimization Maturity Model and has presented papers on the subject across the globe.
Per has a combination of deep practical experience with the understanding of the business drivers for performance and capacity optimization, contributing to his role of a thought-leader in the industry.
Per also sits on HelpSystems’ product management council giving his insight of real-world needs and translating that into deliverable products for the market.
Tuesday General Session - February 8th
The second Tuesday General Session: 4060 "Cyber Incidents and Mitigation" will be presented by Tomas Armendariz: Computer Scientist, and Sergio Barrio: Special Agent, both of the FBI, Cyber Division.
The speakers will discuss prevalent and current cyber incidents including ransomware, phishing, email compromise, day zero software bugs (log4J and Apple IOS), and other exploits. They will identify types of security breaches, targeting techniques used on companies/organizations and on individuals, and social engineering approaches. They will review legal mitigation procedures and the best practices to avoid becoming a target and victim either individually or as an organization.
Thursday General Session - February 10th
The second Thursday General Session, 4061 "Cyber Recovery: Combating the 21st Century Disaster" will be presented by Jason Proctor, Advisory Systems Engineer for Cyber Recovery and Compliance of Dell Technologies' Data Protection Solutions Global Technology Office.
Cyber is the new disaster and organizations are not prepared to protect themselves nor are they prepared should "IF" become "WHEN" they are impacted by a cyber event. During the presentation we will explore the anatomy of an attack, cyber resilience vs. cyber recovery and best practices for enabling recovery when an event happens.
Jason Proctor, Advisory Systems Engineer, Dell Technologies
Discussion Objectives:
- Understanding anatomy of an attack
- Detail meaning of cyber resilience
- Best practices for data protection
- Building a Cyber Incident Response plan.