1. As a child what job did you want to have when you grew up?
I remember wanting to be a number of things between the ages of 8 and 12:
(a) a spy — after reading The Thirty-Nine Steps
(b) a pilot — from various comics
(c) Sir Clive Sinclair
2. If you had one business lesson to share with your younger self what would it be?
Decisions will always take longer than you think, no matter how good you believe the idea — so making the effort to ensure all stakeholders are supportive will go a long way to achieving success.
3. Which Internet of Things (IoT) use case has recently fired your imagination?
There are a couple of use cases which really interest me:
- The Kuri home robot — a robot built using the ROS (Robot Operating System) running Ubuntu – really demonstrates how quickly AI is advancing.
- The use of facial recognition to transform the bricks-and-mortar shopping experience — e.g. digital signage running facial application toolkits.
- Telemedicine – whether from home devices which can feed data to your physician or remotely carrying out surgery. This would really help people in rural areas all over the globe.
4. What lessons have you learned from doing business in other countries or organisations?
Taking the time to better understand the culture, behaviours and business practices of a country will make things much easier, rather than assuming an Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism and doing business will always work.