The Creativity of Designing Edge Solutions for the Enterprise with Nick Barcet, Sr. Director of Technology Strategy at Red Hat

Why are vector databases important at the edge? In this episode, Bill sits down with Dr. Vivien Dollinger, CEO at ObjectBox, to discuss the growing significance of vector databases in the AI tech stack and how this will impact the future of edge computing. They dive into the future of edge AI data management and why more data isn’t yet stored at the edge.

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Key Quotes:

“Vector databases are an essential piece of the AI tech stack and will become even more so.”

“We will see more infrastructure software for edge computing coming up to empower the market to really make the edge as easy as the cloud.”

“I believe there will be more data staying in the edges, residing in edges, than on the cloud. But this is going to take time.”

“This whole terminology around edge computing and edge is not doing edge computing a favor.”

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Timestamps: 
(06:54) What are vector databases? (excel ata similarity search)

(11:30) What makes it an edge vector database?

(16:43) Data sync and future of data management at the edge 

(20:05) What are people doing with the data 

(24:30) connections between edge computing and sustainability

(28:30) The future of edge AI data management

(36:00) What’s exciting about edge over the next couple of years?

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Dr. Vivien Dollinger on LinkedIn

Where do multi-cloud and edge intersect?  What is the dividing line between them? In this episode, Bill sits down with Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technology Evangelist at Rackspace Technology, to dive into relationships between edge, multi-cloud, managed hosting, and colos. They discuss the never-ending decisions that have to be made regarding where to host data.

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Key Quotes:

“I don't like thinking about things from the angle of how can I save money? What I do like on the fin-up side, is how do I ensure that every dollar, every peso, every euro I'm going to spend on technology is going to drive meaningful business outcomes?”

“What excites me about the future of edge computing? First of all, because it is a first class citizen today and not a buzzword. That one gets me excited, that it is a core component of most enterprise architectures these days and a first-class citizen there.” 

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Timestamps: 
(01:00) How Jeff got started in tech

(06:43) The lin between edge, cloud, and colos

(12:43) IT has to understand the business side 

(14:51) Views on multi-cloud
(26:36) Managed hosting at Rackspace 
(28:12) Navigating egress fees

(32:08) Is moving to the cloud the riskiest thing a company will do? 

(38:08) Do customers care about edge as a term? 

(41:20) What excites Jeff about the future of the edge?

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Jeff DeVerter on LinkedIn

How will edge technologies and AI shape the future of our cities? In this episode, Bill sits down with John Lockhart, Lead Sustainability Technologist, Global Digital Cities at Dell, to discuss all things digital cities. They dive into how city leaders can approach digital transformation and tackle the problems in their cities, and discuss digital twins and the impact of AI. 
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Key Quotes:

“What's happening at the edge from an IOT perspective, as well as what's happening in the data center, they're able to really drive insights from the value they're gaining at the edge. And then that in turn delivers on the outcomes that leaders are providing their, whether it's constituents from a city perspective or whether it's shareholders from an enterprise perspective."

“Cities have really been dealing with a lot of different technology challenges as they come across a problem over the past 30, 40 years, they'll apply a solution that solves a particular problem. But that's really like putting a band-aid, rather than trying to find the root cause and see how they can drive different results.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:05) How John got started in tech 

(03:26) Applied IOT in digital cities 

(05:46) What makes a smart city smart? 

(08:56) Where can city leaders begin?

(10:23) What obstacles do city leaders face? 

(13:53) John’s work at the live lab incubator 

(16:48) How do cities decide what problems to tackle? 

(20:45) Greenfield versus brownfield

(26:31) Digital twins in cities 

(29:57) Understanding ROI in digital cities 

(38:42) How will AI change our cities? 

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with John Lockhart on LinkedIn

Artificial Intelligence and Gen AI in Smart Cities, white paper by John Lockhart

What is the future of edge computing in the space age? In this episode, Bill sits down with Elizebeth Varghese, Partner / Principal, Space Economy Acceleration Leader at Deloitte to discuss her work on bitcoin and the spacefaring economy, and how it relates to the future of edge computing. They dive into space as the ultimate edge computing use case and how space technologies will change society.

Key Quotes:

“In combining that aspect of edge computing and the blockchain aspect, you can manage digital identities. Individuals can have control and self sovereign control over their individual identities because they can control what's shared, they can control how it's shared, and that's not something that they need to rely on a third party.”

“Lots of IT folk are going to have to understand the non-terrestrial aspect of data management... I think IT leaders and technologists are going to have to understand this intersection with data that gets piped from somewhere else.”

“I'd expect edge computing to decentralize space data marketplace where users could buy and sell data directly from satellites.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:15) Elizabeth’s work and background 

(05:56) The human side of blockchain 

(16:56) What is the space economy? 

(20:16) Primary non-terrestrial use cases

(23:30) Managing space-based data 

(28:59) What comes next? 

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Elizebeth Varghese on LinkedIn

What is the future of IT and how does it affect careers at the edge? In this episode, Bill sits down with Brad Maltz, Senior Director of the DevOps Portfolio and DevRel at Dell Technologies to discuss DevRel, EdgeOps and how IT can adapt to the momentum of edge technologies. They explore how people in IT should navigate their careers at this technology juncture, and whether the terms edge, cloud and data center will remain relevant.

Key Quotes:

“Do you truly need to designate that physical destination as an edge versus cloud versus data center? I don't think you do.”

“The DevOps movement is well positioned to help the edge going forward.”

“DevOps to me is an operating model. It's all about IT technology-oriented folks needing to become more agile to partner and satisfy their end users.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:10) How Brad got started in tech 

(02:47) What is DevRel and why is it important? 

(06:28) How should IT adapt to growth at the edge?

(09:39) Who is IT at this point? 

(12:24) How can IT prepare and stay relevant?

(24:56) If Brad were starting in tech now, what would he focus on?

(28:50) The role of platform engineering 

(31:15) Will the terms data center, cloud and edge matter in the future?

(37:43) What is Brad looking forward to in Devrel and IT?

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Brad Maltz on LinkedIn

Check out Brad’s DevOps Thought Leadership vlog and Webinar

Once a boutique operation, New Belgium Brewing is now producing millions of barrels of beer. In this episode, Bill sits down with Adam Little, who has been with the company for nearly nine years and currently serves as Senior Manager, Enterprise Security and Compliance. They dive into how New Belgium has used edge technologies to scale their production to meet increasing demand and to improve their distribution processes.

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Key Quotes:

“As we've grown over the years, we said look, the only way we can do this is looking at the data and really using our power of IT to drive that business forward. How can we save time in the brewing process? How can we get a couple more cans off the line? How can we get a couple more cases out the door? Are we brewing the right things at the right time so that we're prepared for demand?”

“One thing's for sure, if you never collect the data you can't make the right decision with it.”

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Show Timestamps:

(02:05) How technology supports beer production 

(06:15) Scaling production through automation

(07:03) What data do they collect, and how do they collect it? 

(13:03) Using data to support distribution 

(19:03) Increasing canning speed and capacity 

(23:47) The process of automating 

(26:37) Processing data and determining what to keep 

(30:37) Identifying the business problem 

(37:23) What is next for New Belgium? 

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Adam Little on LinkedIn

Learn more about what New Belgium Brewing is doing at the edge: Video, Case Study

Visual AI at the edge is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, even reaching some traditionally lower tech sectors like gas station convenience stores. In this conversation, Bill sits down with Sridhar Sudarsan, the CTO at SparkCognition, to discuss their visual AI products and how they have been deployed at scale throughout gas stations and how they are using visual AI to enhance school safety. They dive into ethical considerations of visual AI at the edge and how SparkCognition thinks about operations in addition to model training.

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Key Quotes:

“These AI systems are really a tool that helps the human, who then helps the AI systems, who then helps the human. And we're constantly pushing the barrier to raise the bar.”

“From an industry perspective, Murphy's Law continues to apply and I think we continue to find hardware getting less and less expensive, more processing happening at lower costs.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:18) How did Sridhar get started in technology? 

(02:16) Sridhar’s time at IBM

(10:45) Visual AI use cases at gas stations 

(18:13) Using existing camera infrastructure 

(20:43) Developing an economic model to deploy edge AI

(25:11) ROI calculator 

(29:02) Privacy and visual AI in schools 

(34:32) Training ethical AI 

(40:46) Sridhar’s favorite deployments 

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Sridhar Sudarsan on LinkedIn

How is AI being used at the edge, and what possibilities does this create for businesses? In this episode, host Bill Pfeifer sits down with the co-authors of the book AI at the Edge, Jenny Plunkett, Senior Developer Relations Engineer and Daniel Situnayake, Head of ML at Edge Impulse. They discuss how to determine which problems can actually be addressed through AI at the edge, how to think about effective AI, and unexpected use cases in generative AI and synthetic data generation. Plus, they cover how AI can support data distillation efforts and how to build teams that can successfully navigate this landscape. 

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Key Quotes:

“We're going to be using generative AI to help us build a synthetic data set to train other AI models to deploy to edge devices.” - Jenny

“One of the things that's really cool about synthetic data and using generative AI for that, is it potentially reduces the cost of training a model because instead of having to spend huge amounts of money labeling all this data, if you create the data yourself, you can have it implicitly be labeled.” - Dan 

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Show Timestamps:

(01:49) How did they get started in tech? 

(03:14) What brought them to AI?

(08:12) What brought them together to write their book?

(13:26) Determining which problems can be addressed with AI at the edge

(15:51) What possibilities does AI at the edge create for businesses? 

(20:41) Synthetic data and generative AI 

(24:15) Using AI for data distillation 

(31:00) Building a skilled and interdisciplinary team 

(39:30) AI’s transition from a career path to a tool 

(43:06) Effective AI 

(46:46) Edge / wildlife conservation case study 

(49:37) What are they excited about moving forward? 

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Jenny Plunkett on LinkedIn

Connect with Daniel Situnayake on LinkedIn and Twitter

Daniel’s substack

What can IT learn from OT and vice versa? How are these two groups collaborating and where is it difficult for them to see eye-to-eye? In this episode, Bill sits down with Jeroen Mackenbach, Engineering Technologist for the Edge Portfolio at Dell Technologies, who has extensive experience on both the IT and OT side, and who has been writing and speaking about the ways the two groups can relate to one another to work together. They dive into the various perspectives each group brings and how this will influence the edge.

Key Quotes:

“What I see is that OT and IT, they aren't getting along because there's a lot of very different areas that they're interested in. It's a tough equation.” 

“OT is doing a lot of innovation to make sure that they can actually utilize all of those resources in a deterministic way. And we now need IT to actually adopt it to make sure that we have the capabilities to actually run these virtualized workloads.

“It's a lot of interaction between the OT and the IT world, which is happening. And that allows us to also do a lot of innovation, together with these partners which is a good thing because we're making a lot of progress there.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:20) How Jeroen got started in technology 

(02:37) Why did he move into IT?

(04:55) IT versus OT

(06:20) How can we remove friction between IT and OT?

(10:41) Tech cycles in IT, OT and at the edge 

(13:03) Why Jeroen wrote a blog about IT and OT  

(15:55) Is automation at the edge bringing IT and OT closer together?

(19:12) Operating at an IT scale with OT level security 

(21:40) SCADA networks and security 

(28:07) Collaboration between both ways of thinking

(34:13) What IT and OT learn from each other 

(40:00) What is Jeroen focused on next? 

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Jeroen on LinkedIn

Hear more from Jeroen: 

• Dell NativeEdge: Securing your edge environments with zero trust technology
• How to Protect Your Edge Estate and How NativeEdge Can Deploy It
• Dell NativeEdge Speeds Edge Deployments with FIDO Device Onboard (FDO)

How has computer vision evolved and what is its potential at the edge? In this conversation, Host Bill Pfeifer sits down with Wayne Arvidson, Global Director, Market Development & Strategy at Dell Technologies, to discuss in depth. They dive into five key themes in computer vision use cases, discussing personnel and facility safety, operational efficiency, personal experience, sustainability and revenue enhancement. They also consider whether we will have data marts down the road, and the role of generative AI. 

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Key Quotes:

“The thing that people are looking for from computer vision, they're looking for real time situational awareness. Whether that's from a safety perspective, whether it's from an operations perspective, doesn't matter. And the only way to do that is it's got to sit at the edge. I've got to be ingesting it, processing it, managing it there at the edge. I've got to be where that physical world meets the digital world.”

“There's a lot of information in there that's untapped. As we see the power of edge compute increase, as we see this federated approach to how we work with these edge-based solutions, we're going to start seeing a lot more integration of that information together.”

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Show Timestamps:

(01:10) How Wayne got started in technology 

(04:51) Wayne’s experience through three technology inflections 

(13:49) Wayne’s move into computer vision 

(16:17) Defining computer vision 

(18:00) Computer vision and the edge 

(20:18) Five key themes in computer vision use cases 

(20:30) Personnel and facility safety use cases

(22:55) Personal experience use cases

(24:13) Operational efficiency use cases 

(26:20) Sustainability use cases 

(27:32) Revenue enhancement use cases 

(30:14) Making computer vision enhancing, instead of an invasion of privacy

(35:10) Value in data that we may not have thought of yet 

(38:36) Will we have a data mart? 

(42:40) Generative AI and the edge 

(45:23) The next five years 

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Sponsor:

Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting dell.com/edge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko and Eric Platenyk.

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Links:

Follow Bill on LinkedIn

Connect with Wayne on LinkedIn

Learn more from Wayne: 

Seeing The Bigger Picture: Transforming Data Insights into Increased Profitability and Growth - Vlog

Beyond the Platform: An Outcome Driven Computer Vision Strategy - Webinar