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When it comes to application development, many companies are pursuing no-code and low-code solutions to stay competitive. No-code and low-code solutions require less coding expertise, making application development accessible to more employees and enabling IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives. They also give end users flexibility and control — all of which is especially valuable during a critical time of ongoing shortages of highly skilled IT workers.

The benefits of no-code and low-code solutions are numerous, including better collaboration between IT and the business and freeing up IT departments for more complex work.

Implementing no-code and low-code solutions also means a shift in employee responsibilities as well as an organization’s culture — both near- and long-term. For example, by 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not technology professionals, according to Gartner. Organizations and employees alike must be prepared for this change.

IT will find that no-code and low-code solutions transform its role for the better by reducing expenditure, encouraging progress with digital transformation corporate initiatives, reducing IT backlog, and increasing its output.

Key benefits of low-code and no-code solutions include:

Reduce IT spending. With low-code, fewer highly skilled developers are needed and the number of single-point solutions drops. Organizations that once held licenses to dozens of software tools — many of which help only a single department — instead now create their own applications and automated processes.

“IT can leverage one low-code development platform and have the flexibility to meet all department initiatives,” says Suprakash Das, GEP’s VP of platform engineering. “Low-code platforms that are flexible and that can achieve results across the organization are extremely valuable to IT organizations.”

Increase innovation. The need for digital transformation is more urgent than ever. New applications must be delivered quickly, and IT teams are under enormous pressure to do so with limited resources. With low-code application development, IT finds that delivering in under a month is attainable. Business goals are achieved faster. No longer does IT lose time to technical debt and bad code. Developers currently spend more than 17 hours a week on these tasks, but with no-code and low-code solutions, more time is freed up for more interesting, innovative work.

Reduce IT backlog. Most IT teams face a long, growing list of priorities to tackle, but thanks to low-code/no-code platforms, the IT backlog is reduced. Programmers equipped with an efficient solution can complete complicated projects in a fraction of the time usually required, and business leaders are now capable of creating their own solutions. “Entire waves of projects vanish from the IT queue as citizen developers take on their own priorities,” Das says. Pro developers welcome this ability to work on more complex projects and the opportunity to increase their skill sets.

Initially there can be a steep learning curve for nontechnical users, but these users benefit from growing their own skill sets and taking a more central role in application development. They are empowered to transform their own ideas into applications that help solve key business problems.

Implementation will bring immediate and long-lasting benefits for employees and corporate culture. “Overall, IT will achieve greater productivity with low-code,” Das says. “By streamlining the development process and increasing the use of low-code automation, IT can accomplish much more in less time.”

To learn more about integrating low-code and no-code solutions into your organization, visit GEP.

No Code and Low Code

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As of late, debate has rekindled around cloud repatriation and whether it is a real phenomenon or just a myth. Much of the confusion may stem from lack of agreement on the term itself: many envision repatriation as an organization completely shifting from a public cloud provider back to on-premises infrastructure, but this is seldom the case.

Recent evidence suggests that repatriation is just one aspect of a larger trend towards rationalizing and optimizing workloads across various IT environments. As a result, organizations are rethinking their workload distribution in public clouds for a variety of reasons, including performance, cost optimization, and security.

This indicates that repatriation is not necessarily a sign of failure in public cloud migrations, but rather an indication that organizations are becoming more adept at optimizing their workloads. This was the topic of Dell’s latest Power of Technology podcast by Mick Turner and Nick Brackney. Read on to learn more about their insights.

Some are questioning the long-term cost benefits of public cloud consumption

One reason some organizations begin to rethink workload placement stems from the financial implications of operating in the cloud long-term. Such was the case for 37 Signals, parent company for the project management solution Basecamp. After running a cost analysis, CTO David Heinemeier Hansson concluded that Basecamp’s predictable growth and relatively stable usage made it better suited for owning their own physical infrastructure than remaining in the public cloud.

Heinemeier Hansson observed that the public cloud makes sense for applications with runaway growth or wild peaks in usage, scenarios which never applied to Basecamp. “By continuing to operate in the cloud, we’re paying an at times almost absurd premium for the possibility that it could [have wild peaks in usage]. It’s like paying a quarter of your house’s value for earthquake insurance when you don’t live anywhere near a fault line.”

Security remains the top reason for migrating to and from the public cloud

Although there are growing doubts about the long-term cost benefits of public cloud, cost is not the primary factor that organizations consider when moving their workloads. According to a recent survey conducted by Dell of 233 IT decision makers[1], security is still the top reason for organizations to move their workloads both out of, but also into, the public cloud.

There are a few potential reasons for this. Organizations continue to perceive security benefits in the public cloud—automation, reduced IT overhead and access to best-of-breed capabilities to name a few. But along with those upsides come with—you guessed it—some downsides. For example, organizations that have been running on premises may benefit from years of institutional knowledge of internal practices that can be lost with a wholesale cloud migration. Issues around data sovereignty, compliance and regulatory guidelines can also complicate things. Many people simply find it challenging to manage a multicloud environment where there are subsets of data that can and can’t live in the public cloud.

In certain instances, these challenges can result in organizations fundamentally rethinking their environments—which can lead to a wholesale repatriation effort, or a smaller rollback of data or applications on premises. Either way, they may increasingly find themselves requiring solutions that help them easily manage and apply consistency across an IT estate that straddles between on premises, colos, edge locations, private cloud and public cloud environments.

Multicloud is complex, but it doesn’t have to be hard

Ultimately, the conversation may be less about cloud repatriation and more about adopting a thoughtful approach to where and how to place workloads. But this requires organizations to take a realistic view of their entire IT landscape and engage in honest discussions with stakeholders and business partners to fully understand their needs and requirements. While operating in a multicloud environment is inherently complex, it doesn’t have to be difficult. There are solutions available that can help organizations integrate with public cloud providers to simplify operations in a multicloud environment and bring the agility of the cloud operating model to dedicated IT environments. Although specific implementations may vary by organization, the principles of designing for multicloud environments remain consistent.

To learn more, listen to Debunking Cloud Repatriation from the Power of Technology, and stay tuned for more installments in this series in the coming weeks.

[1] 2022 survey of 233 IT decision makers, Dell internal study

Cloud Management

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The metaverse—a fast-emerging combination of technologies including augmented and virtual reality, IoT, and blockchain—is poised to change the way financial services organizations and other companies do business.   

“By blending the physical and the digital worlds, the metaverse is changing the rules of engagement and enabling us to connect without barriers,” says Anupam Singhal, a Senior Vice President at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). “For financial institutions, it can transform the way they offer services and training, making them more convenient, engaging, accessible and inclusive.”   

Metaverse applications are developing quickly. According to Gartner, 25% of people will spend at least an hour in the metaverse by 2026. While financial institutions are starting to experiment with pilot programs, they must ensure that they have the right infrastructure and security protections in place to reap the full-scale benefits the metaverse has to offer.  

Innovative products and services 

In the metaverse, financial institutions can offer customers and employees personalized experiences that leave a lasting impression. For example, clients can hold virtual consultations with investment advisors across the globe and improve their financial knowledge by using 3D interactive tools. Financial institutions can also cater to underserved and underbanked customers with minimal to no charges.  

Employees, even the ones situated in isolated, remote locations, can take virtual tours and gain knowledge faster. TCS is developing an application, for example, that leads new employees on a lifelike journey through a bank’s corporate buildings and history as part of their onboarding experience. And with virtual training, employees can practice skills in a realistic, risk-free environment. 

Metaverse services can also help banks attract new customers.  

“We have a lineup of exciting projects, including creating a virtual bank for retail transactions and a non-fungible token marketplace using blockchain,” Singhal says. “We have already implemented augmented marketing and branding solutions in retail, and we are working on pilots in the business-to-business and business-to-consumer spaces.”  

A seamless, secure infrastructure 

To make these dynamic services possible, organizations must create digital replicas of the real world, supported by dedicated offerings on Microsoft Cloud. Seamless connectivity and extremely low latency, enabled by specialized graphics and edge processing, are also critical to providing vivid experiences and near-real time interactions.   

“With decentralized Web3 technology, users can also take advantage of peer-to-peer capabilities, running some tools and platforms on their devices instead of relying on the cloud,” Singhal says.  

In addition to creating ground-breaking experiences, the metaverse, like other emerging technologies, brings a new set of security challenges. Rogue actors could attempt to steal target NFTs and tokens, or use deepfake techniques to impersonate financial advisors. Personal data collected by AR and VR applications creates greater opportunities for identity theft.  

“We must rethink how we address data privacy and security in the metaverse,” Singhal says. “We need strong regulations like GDPR to define clear boundaries. We also need more security measures like multi-factor authentication and digital encryption to ensure secure experiences.”   

Getting started in the metaverse 

Every organization must carve its own path to the metaverse, a process that starts by examining existing technology and defining services to prioritize.   

“TCS has a successful history of helping businesses grow and transform through technology and make a meaningful difference. We can help leaders identify areas where they can improve, whether that means upgrading infrastructure, investing in new technology, or bringing in new talent. We can co-develop metaverse strategies that align with their business goals and objectives,” Singhal says.  

Organizations can then co-create experiences on the TCS AvapresenceTM platform, which uses blockchain, AI, AR, VR, and mixed reality technologies to address customer needs. For financial services companies, TCS has developed a specialized program that involves training their associates to become proficient in using several 3D engines and platforms to address industry challenges, including security, data privacy, and compliance concerns.   

Financial organizations that want to gain a competitive edge should get started soon.  

“Banks that offer virtual services are going to have a larger consumer mindshare, particularly among younger generations,” Singhal says. “By engaging with the right experts, leaders can break boundaries and take advantage of the metaverse’s limitless opportunities.” 

Learn how to master your cloud transformation journey with TCS and Microsoft Cloud. 

Financial Services Industry

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Despite national conversations about a lack of women in IT, women remain largely underrepresented in STEM roles, according to a study by the National Science Foundation. And the pipeline doesn’t suggest a near-term correction, as only 19% of computer science degrees were awarded to women in 2016, down from 27% in 1997. Women also typically make less than their male counterparts in science, engineering, mathematics, and computer science occupations — with an average median salary of $66,000 per year, versus $90,000 for men.

And, according to recent data, representation of women in IT is trending in the wrong direction. In 2022, more than half of companies lost 20% of their tech workforce to attrition, with women technologists (16%) leaving at a higher rate than men (13%). With twice as many women having left tech jobs in 2022 than in 2021, representation of women in the IT industry is currently at pre-pandemic levels, with 27% of technology roles filled by women compared to nearly 29% in 2020, according to data from AnitaB.org.

Such issues have played a large role in the rise of organizations focused on empowering and supporting women in tech roles. Today’s networking and advocacy landscape finds a growing array of programs and organizations for girls, women, and anyone who identifies as a woman — and plenty are also open to male allies. Here are 18 key organizations dedicated to uplifting women in tech, pushing inclusivity in the workplace and closing the diversity gap.

18 organizations for women in tech

Ada Developers AcademyAnitaB.orgBlack Girls CodeChange CatalystGirl Develop ItGirls in TechGirls Who CodeLeague of Women CodersNational Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)SwitchTechLadiesTechWomenWomen in STEMWomen in Tech (WIT)Women in Technology (WIT)Women in Tech Council (WTC)Women in Technology International (WITI)Women Who Code

Ada Developers Academy

Ada Developers Academy is a nonprofit, tuition-free coding school for women and gender expansive adults that also prioritizes BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and low-income people. The training program offers a collaborative learning environment as well as individualized support through mentors, tutors, mental health support, and affinity groups. Participants also take part in a paid “applied learning internship” that teaches students how to write code and the skills to become a software developer.

AnitaB.org

The AnitaB.org is a nonprofit organization for women in tech that was founded in 1997 by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney. The organization seeks to support women in technology and to “connect, inspire, and guide women in computing.” AnitaB.org also includes Systers, which was founded in 1987 by Anita Borg as the first online community for women in tech. Systers is still functioning today and is now the “largest email community of women in technical computing” with more than 8,500 members worldwide.

Black Girls Code

Kimberly Bryant founded Black Girls Code in part because she felt culturally isolated in her electrical engineering and computer programming courses in college. While women are underrepresented in STEM fields, that’s even more true for women of color working in the industry. Black Girls Code is an organization that aims to support young and pre-teen girls of color to help give them the resources they need to succeed in STEM fields. Sparking an interest in technology at a young age is important to encourage girls to embrace an interest in STEM and to show them that a career in tech is an option.

Change Catalyst

Change Catalyst is an organization focused on diversity in tech for women and minorities — it was developed in a direct response to Silicon Valley tech industry diversity numbers released in 2014. Change Catalyst “builds inclusive tech ecosystems through strategic advising, startup programs and resources, and a series of events around the globe,” according to the organization’s website. The organization speaks at all-hands events, team offsites, leadership retreats, industry conferences, and startup programs in addition to developing L&D programming, hosting inclusive events, and designing customized training solutions. Change Catalyst also offers one-on-one inclusive leadership coaching to help leaders drive DEI in their organizations.

Girl Develop It

Girl Develop It offers web and software development courses at affordable rates in a “judgement-free zone.” The nonprofit organization offers hands-on programs that teach women and non-binary professional skills for software development and supports a diverse network of women in STEM. Girl Develop It has charters in 60 cities across the country, but if you can’t find one in your area you can submit a request for a new chapter where you live. The goal of the organization is to help eliminate barriers for women and non-binary individuals through live and hybrid workshops on career topics, one on one instructor study, and learning and networking events for members.

Girls in Tech

Girls in Tech is a nonprofit organization that aims to stop gender inequality in the tech industry by empowering women through coding courses, bootcamps, and hackathons for girls and women of all ages and professions. The mission is to “support women with the access and community they need to succeed in tech.” The organization started in San Francisco in 2007 and has since grown to include over 62,000 members in 33 countries. Events and programs vary by chapter and are designed to suit the specific needs of each community.

Girls Who Code

Girls Who Code is an organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in tech and redefining what it means to be a programmer. It includes after-school clubs, summer courses and programs, and career advice and networking support for college students. According to data from Girls Who Code, 66% of girls aged six to 12 are interested in computing programs, but that drops to 32% for girls aged 13 to 17 and down to just 4% for college freshmen. The organization focuses in keeping girls and young women engaged in STEM fields as they grow by giving them support and a community.

League of Women Coders

Formerly Ladies Who Code, the League of Women Coders is a “grassroots collective” for coders, hackers, and anyone interesting in learning more about programming. The group meets monthly to work on projects, catch up, ask questions, and share ideas about the industry. The next two meetups are planned for New York City and Washington, DC. Meetings are open to anyone who identifies as a woman and typically include refreshments, food, and the occasional speaker.

National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)

The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a community of “change leaders focused on advancing innovation by correcting underrepresentation in computing.” They offer several programs both for professionals as well as for kids, teens, and young adults. The organization, which was chartered by the National Science Foundation in 2004 and was one of the first organizations to focus on women’s participation in computing fields, also offers support to companies that want to strengthen DEI in their organizations through hiring, awareness, inclusion, and systemic change. They also provide research and stats on diversity and inclusion in the tech industry for women and BIPOC technologists.

Switch

Switch, formerly known as Women 2.0, is a for-profit media and tech company that creates and delivers content, programming, products, and services designed to bring awareness to issues surrounding inequality and inclusion in the tech industry. Switch provides programs for founders who are trying to grow startups and provides networking opportunities and resources on capital, hiring, workplace culture, and more. The goal is to create a more diverse and inclusive environment, especially when it comes to startups.

TechLadies

TechLadies is an organization that focuses on connecting members with jobs and opportunities in tech through an online network, a free job board, and events and resources to help members learn new skills to grow their careers. TechLadies’ more than 150,000 members receive access to a private online community, weekly webinars and a library of on-demand webinars, goal-setting challenges to stay motivated, and member-only online events. In 2022, Ada’s List joined TechLadies, bringing their nearly 10,000 members over to continue their mission to uplift women in tech. 

TechWomen

TechWomen is an initiative of the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs — the global organization brings together women in STEM fields from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East with those working in Silicon Valley and San Francisco to build a stronger network in the industry. To join the organization, you’ll need at least two years of professional experience working in a STEM field with a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. It works as a mentorship and exchange program, bringing women over from other countries to the US to “engage in project-based mentorships at leading companies” in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Women in STEM

Women in STEM is an organization that matches female university students and professionals with high school girls to encourage them to stay engaged in STEM. The aim is to increase representation in STEM fields through one-to-one mentoring partnerships. Mentors offer mentees college and career advice to help young girls understand the path to college and a career in STEM. Women in STEM also organizes guest speakers, discussion panels, and other programs for elementary, middle, and high school aged girls to get them excited about the field. 

Women in Tech (WIT)

Women in Tech (WIT) is an organization focused on fostering DEI in STEM by promoting the empowerment of girls and women globally when it comes to education, business, digital inclusion, and advocacy. WIT offers a global mentoring program for those seeking mentorship in career and leadership, technology, startups, digital marketing, project and product management, business analytics, and UX/UI design. The mentorship program is no-cost for both mentors and mentees, and it involves three individual sessions over the span of three months, where participants are given access onboarding and training materials as well as closed community meetings and events.

Women in Technology (WIT)

Women in Technology (WIT) is committed to advancing women in technology through leadership development, education initiatives, and networking and mentorship opportunities for women technologists at every level of their career. WIT offers the mentor-protégé program, which matches participants with experienced professionals for mentorship. Protégés are matched with four different members over the course of five months, allowing mentors and mentees to connect with different professionals who can offer unique insight into the industry.

Women in Tech Council (WTC)

The Women in Tech Council (WTC) is focused on developing programs that help diversity the pipeline from high school to the C-Suite. WTC offers programs on DEI, women in the C-suite, women-led startups, innovation, and inclusion. They also offer mentorship, networking, and learning opportunity for members, in addition to several different events including the WTC Summit, where topics around tech talent, building careers, and talent trends are highlighted and discussed in panel sessions.

Women in Technology International (WITI)

Women in Technology International (WITI) was founded in 1989 as the International Network of Women in Technology and was later rebranded in 2001. WITI is a global organization that connects over two million women in STEM with membership in the US, Hong Kong, Great Britain, Australia, and Mexico. WITI organizes events, meetups, career coaching, speaker events, and more across the US and around the world. The organization is dedicated to empowering innovation and building a future of inclusivity in the workplace.

Women Who Code

Women Who Code focuses on empowering women in tech and redefining the industry so that women are equally represented at leaders, executives, founders, VCs, board members, and software engineers. The focus is on empowering women with the coding and programming skills they need to advance in their careers, educating companies on how to promote, retain and hire women and establishing a global community of mentorship and support for women engineers.

More on Women in IT

Gender gapped: The state of gender diversity in ITWomen IT leaders bring fresh perspectives to corporate boards20 worthwhile conferences for women in techWomen in tech statistics: The hard truths of an uphill battle12 awards that recognize women in tech7 factors women look for in an IT employer — and how to address them

Careers, Diversity and Inclusion, Women in IT

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Despite diversity being a much-discussed topic in the tech industry, representation for Black tech workers is still not where it needs to be, with African Americans holding just 7% of positions in the tech industry, and only 2% of tech executive roles, according to data from the Diversity in High Tech report published by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Moreover, Black IT pros — even those in leadership positions — still encounter unique challenges both in the workplace and in their career paths.

While the onus of change rests in large part on employers to alter their approaches to hiring and inclusivity in the workplace, the following 17 professional organizations are dedicated to advancing the careers of Black IT pros and increasing Black representation in the tech industry through training, networking resources, and more.

American Association of Blacks in Energy

The American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE) is dedicated to ensuring African Americans and other minorities have input and a voice in the discussion and development of energy policies, regulations, R&D technologies, and environmental issues. AABE awards $350,000 annually in scholarships to students in energy-related tech fields and offers a career center for job seekers and employers. There’s also the AABE Institute, which provides training, technical assistance, market information, supplier and partnership opportunities, and business solutions. The AABE Institute has a goal of leading resource for energy issues in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Diaspora, with a focus on sustainable development.

Black & Brown Founders

Black & Brown Founders is a professional organization for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs to network and learn about startup bootstrapping through online resources and events. The goal is to “give entrepreneurs knowledge, tools, and cutting-edge tactics to launch startups without relying on venture capital.” Black & Brown Founders was developed after its founder Aniyia Williams saw firsthand the barriers people of color face when trying to get venture funding. She wanted to provide a way for founders of color with limited resources to get the training and resources to support their business idea, helping them grow their businesses without outside funding.

Black Code Collective

The Black Code Collective (BCC) was started in 2016 to create a safe space and community for Black software engineers. For many Black technologists, they often find themselves as one of the only Black employees on their team or in the room. And workspaces are often “started and run by white people,” which brings an “unspoken burden for Black people,” according to BCC. This inherent bias that runs through the industry is what makes groups like BCC so important. It gives Black technologists a space to connect with peers who understand their situation, and who can help ease some of the stress that can come from navigating predominantly white workspaces. BCC advocates for taking the necessary steps to retool the IT and tech talent pipelines, and how to take the right steps to ensure Black tech workers have the same opportunity, sponsorship, and equity as their non-BIPOC peers.

Black Data Processing Associates

The Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA) is an international organization founded in 1975 as a network for underrepresented minorities working in the IT and computer science fields. The BDPA organizes technology conferences, local chapter events, continuing education and professional development events, academic scholarships, and mentoring and career opportunities for Black IT professionals. The BPDA also organizes community outreach programs for students, including the Student Information Technology Education and Scholarship (SITES), National High School Computer Competitions (HSCC), and Youth Technology Camp (YTC) to increase representation in tech and create pipelines for future talent.

Black Founders

Black Founders was started in 2011 as an organization dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and to provide founders with access to advice, mentorship, and funding. The goal is to “stimulate tech entrepreneurship” and create more growth in the community. Black entrepreneurs are underrepresented in the tech industry and only make up 1% of VC-backed tech startup founders. Black Founders wants to increase that representation and bring more opportunity to Black entrepreneurs. They offer different events and conferences for members to connect and network in addition to hosting weekend-long “HBCUHacks” hackathon events at historically Black colleges and universities.

Black Tech Nation (BTN)

Black Tech Nation (BTN) is dedicated to helping Black technologists gain access to valuable resources, networks, and opportunities in the tech industry. It was started in 2017 after its founder, Kelauni Jasmyn, noticed that, after graduating a coding bootcamp, she didn’t see many other software developers who “looked like her in the local tech scene.” She later received a grant to create BTN, to help create a community for other Black technologists who also felt isolated in their careers. The organization offers companies a pipeline to Black tech talent, supports the next generation of Black tech entrepreneurs, highlights impactful Black “techies,” and helps create community hubs in cities for Black technologists to connect, network, and find support.

Blacks in Technology

Black workers in the tech industry typically find they are the only black person in the room, and that underrepresentation bleeds into career growth, pay equity, and mentorship opportunities. Nonprofit organization Blacks in Technology (BIT) aims to “stomp the divide” between Black workers to help “level the playing field through training, education, networking and mentorship with the support of allies, partners and sponsors.”

BIT has chapters across the US and internationally where members can attend events, trainings, and tech summits designed to uplift and connect the Black tech community. Members also get access to career support, networking, and tech resources. Membership is open to any Black woman or man who works in tech, making it the largest community of BIPOC tech workers in the world.

Blacks United in Leading Technology (BUiLT)

Blacks United in Leading Technology (BUiLT) is a nonprofit professional organization that offers community-focused activities, events, and programs that focus on Black technology workers and highlight the importance of diversity, equity, and equality in the tech industry. BUiLT believes in “equity for Blacks in tech, in where they work, with those who buy our products, and investors who support our ventures,” according to the website. You can find BUiLT chapters across the United States, with locations in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Miami, North Texas, San Diego, and more.

Members enjoy free and discounted technical training, including discounted rates for Lean Six Sigma certifications, along with free training for the cybersecurity PenTest+ certification. Members also get access to a large network of other entrepreneurs, founders, senior business leaders, and other professionals dedicated to increasing representation of Black people in technology. Membership also includes professional development courses, mentorship opportunities, events, speaking opportunities, engagement with corporate sponsors, private events, and optional website listings for business owners.

Black Professionals in Tech Network (BPTN)

The Black Professionals in Tech Network (BPTN) was started as a way for Black tech professionals to connect with one another to build community. Its network currently consists of more than 50,000 Black professionals who network, connect, share resources, and grow their careers together. Members get access to mentorship, events, summits, skill-building opportunities, and a strong peer-network to support career growth. One of the goals of BPTN is not only to connect Black tech professionals, but to help corporations strengthen diversity in the talent pipeline. BPTN helps corporate partners understand how to attract, hire, retain, and promote Black tech talent by changing not only the way they hire, but their internal culture.

Black Women Talk Tech

Black Women Talk Tech is an organization dedicated to supporting Black women founders and technologists, with over 2,500 members in its community. The organization is creating a “roadmap to billions” for Black women entrepreneurs in tech who want their ideas heard, seen, and invested in. They hold annual conferences that they tout as the “largest convening of Black women tech entrepreneurs and technologists,” with conferences held all around the globe. Black Women Talk Tech partners with corporate sponsors such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, and Facebook, just to name a few.

CODE2040

CODE2040 is a nonprofit organization dedicated to “activating, connecting, and mobilizing the largest racial equity community in tech to dismantle the structural barriers that prevent the full participation and leadership of Black and Latinx technologists in the innovation economy.” The organization achieves this through events, training, early-career programs, and knowledge sharing to ensure Black and Latinx technologists have the tools and network to enable racial equity throughout the tech industry. 

DevColor

DevColor bills itself as a “global career accelerator for Black software engineers, technologists, and executives and serves as the go-to accountability partner for the companies who invest in, employ and are led by them.” DevColor is dedicated to creating a community for Black leaders in IT, a group that has been largely excluded from the tech industry by offering career development and networking resources. They offer several unique programs, including the A* program that matches participants with a small cohort of six to eight Black software engineers and managers for a year to offer each other accountability, career mapping, and community. For a spotlight on DevColor, see “DevColor’s cohort approach to uplifting Black IT careers.”

DigitalUndivided (DID)

DigitalUndivided (DID) is an organization focused on fostering more inclusivity in entrepreneurship by empowering Black and Latinx women entrepreneurs. It started as a conference for Black women founders in tech, which led to it growing into a Focus Fellow (FF) program and eventually it turned into an eight-week virtual accelerator program. And they didn’t stop there — DID later took on research projects that uncovered how Black and Latinx female founders receive less than 0.2% of all venture funding. After the report was released, the number of startups led by Black women tripled and funding increased 500%. DID has since continued to expand its offering of programs, initiatives, and research to uplift Black and Latinx female founders in tech.

Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF)

The Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF) offers career-advancing programs for Black IT professionals. The ITSMF was formed in 1996 by a group of technology executives who wanted to improve diversity in the technology industry all the way to the executive level. The mission of the ITSMF is to “increase the representation of black professionals at senior levels in technology, to impact organizational innovation and growth.” The ITSMF offers programs for executives, managers, and an “emerge” program specifically designed for increasing the representation of women of color at senior levels in the technology industry. For a spotlight on ITSMF, see “ITSMF: Growing Black IT careers through leadership programs.”

National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME)

The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) is a professional organization for underrepresented minorities working in engineering and STEM roles. NACME provides college scholarships for underrepresented minorities who are interested in pursuing a degree in STEM. The goal is to increase representation of BIPOC in tech by providing scholarships, resources, and opportunities for “high-achieving, underrepresented minority college students pursuing careers in engineering and computer science.” NACME’s focus is on helping students become qualified candidates for in-demand tech jobs.

National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)

The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) is a student-governed organization with 500 chapters and nearly 16,000 active members in the US and abroad. The nonprofit organization comprises collegiate and pre-collegiate students and technical professionals in engineering and technology. The mission of the NSBE is “to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community,” according to the website. 

Opportunity Hub (OHUB)

The Opportunity Hub (OHUB) was founded as a “technology, startup, and venture ecosystem building platform” to ensure that everyone has “equitable access to the future of work” and to create pathways to “multigenerational wealth creation with no reliance on pre-existing multigenerational wealth.” The organization provides skills development, early tech exposure, job placement, entrepreneurship support program, new job creation, and alternative capital formation for college students, young professionals, founders, and investors nationwide. 

Careers, Diversity and Inclusion, IT Leadership

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Pandemic-era ransomware attacks have highlighted the need for robust cybersecurity safeguards. Now, leading organizations are going further, embracing a cyberresilience paradigm designed to bring agility to incident response while ensuring sustainable business operations, whatever the event or impact.

Cyberresilience, as defined by the Ponemon Institute, is an enterprise’s capacity for maintaining its core business in the face of cyberattacks. NIST defines cyberresilience as “the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that use or are enabled by cyber resources.”

The practice brings together formerly separate disciplines of information security, business continuity, and disaster response (BC/DR) deployed to meet common goals. Although traditional cybersecurity practices were designed to keep cybercriminals out and BC/DR focused on recoverability, cyberresilience aligns the strategies, tactics, and planning of these traditionally siloed disciplines. The goal: a more holistic approach than what’s possible by addressing each individually.

At the same time, improving cyberresilience challenges organizations to think differently about their approach to cybersecurity. Instead of focusing efforts solely on protection, enterprises must assume that cyberevents will occur. Adopting practices and frameworks designed to sustain IT capabilities as well as system-wide business operations is essential.

“The traditional approach to cybersecurity was about having a good lock on the front door and locks on all the windows, with the idea that if my security controls were strong enough, it would keep hackers out,” says Simon Leech, HPE’s deputy director, Global Security Center of Excellence. Pandemic-era changes, including the shift to remote work and accelerated use of cloud, coupled with new and evolving threat vectors, mean that traditional approaches are no longer sufficient.

“Cyberresilience is about being able to anticipate an unforeseen event, withstand that event, recover, and adapt to what we’ve learned,” Leech says. “What cyberresilience really focuses us on is protecting critical services so we can deal with business risks in the most effective way. It’s about making sure there are regular test exercises that ensure that the data backup is going to be useful if worse comes to worst.”

A Cyberresilience Road Map

With a risk-based approach to cyberresilience, organizations evolve practices and design security to be business-aware. The first step is to perform a holistic risk assessment across the IT estate to understand where risk exists and to identify and prioritize the most critical systems based on business intelligence. “The only way to ensure 100% security is to give business users the confidence they can perform business securely and allow them to take risks, but do so in a secure manner,” Leech explains.

Adopting a cybersecurity architecture that embraces modern constructs such as zero trust and that incorporates agile concepts such as continuous improvement is another requisite. It is also necessary to formulate and institute time-tested incident response plans that detail the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, so they are adequately prepared to respond to a cyberincident.

Leech outlines several other recommended actions:

Be a partner to the business. IT needs to fully understand business requirements and work in conjunction with key business stakeholders, not serve primarily as a cybersecurity enforcer. “Enable the business to take risk; don’t prevent them from being efficient,” he advises.Remember that preparation is everything. Cyberresilience teams need to evaluate existing architecture documentation and assess the environment, either by scanning the environment for vulnerabilities, performing penetration tests, or running tabletop exercises. This checks that systems have the appropriate levels of protections to remain operational in the event of a cyberincident. As part of this exercise, organizations need to prepare adequate response plans and enforce the requisite best practices to bring the business back online.Shore up a data protection strategy. Different applications have different recovery-time-objective (RTO) and recovery-point-objective (RPO) requirements, both of which will impact backup and cyberresilience strategies. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach,” Leech says. “Organizations can’t just think about backup but [also about] how to do recovery as well. It’s about making sure you have the right strategy for the right application.”

The HPE GreenLake Advantage

The HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform is designed with zero-trust principles and scalable security as a cornerstone of its architecture. The platform leverages common security building blocks, from silicon to the cloud, to continuously protect infrastructure, workloads, and data while adapting to increasingly complex threats.

HPE GreenLake for Data Protection delivers a family of services that reduces cybersecurity risks across distributed multicloud environments, helping prevent ransomware attacks, ensure recovery from disruption, and protect data and virtual machine (VM) workloads across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments. As part of the HPE GreenLake for Data Protection portfolio, HPE offers access to next-generation as-a-service data protection cloud services, including a disaster recovery service based on Zerto and HPE Backup and Recovery Service. This offering enables customers to easily manage hybrid cloud backup through a SaaS console along with providing policy-based orchestration and automation functionality.

To help organizations transition from traditional cybersecurity to more robust and holistic cyberresilience practices, HPE’s cybersecurity consulting team offers a variety of advisory and professional services. Among them are access to workshops, road maps, and architectural design advisory services, all focused on promoting organizational resilience and delivering on zero-trust security practices.

HPE GreenLake for Data Protection also aids in the cyberresilience journey because it removes up-front costs and overprovisioning risks. “Because you’re paying for use, HPE GreenLake for Data Protection will scale with the business and you don’t have to worry [about whether] you have enough backup capacity to deal with an application that is growing at a rate that wasn’t forecasted,” Leech says.

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Cloud Security

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High performance computing (HPC) is becoming mainstream for organizations, spurred on by their increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics. A 2021 study by Insersect360 Research found that 81% of organizations that use HPC reported they are running AI and machine learning or are planning to implement them soon. It’s happening globally and contributing to worldwide spending on HPC that is poised to exceed $59.65 billion in 2025, according to Grandview Research.

Simultaneously, the intersection of HPC, AI, and analytics workflows are putting pressure on systems administrators to support ever more complex environments. Admins are being asked to complete time-consuming manual configurations and reconfigurations of servers, storage and networking as they move nodes between clusters to provide the resources required for different workload demands. The resulting cluster sprawl consumes inordinate amounts of information technology (IT) resources. 

The answer? For many organizations, it’s a greater reliance on open-source software.

Reaping the Benefits of Open-Source Software & Communities

Developers at some organizations have found that open-source software is an effective way to advance the HPC software stack beyond the limitations of any one vendor. Examples of open-source software used for HPC include Apache Ignite, Open MPI, OpenSFS, OpenFOAM, and OpenStack. Almost all major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) participate in the OpenHPC community, along with key HPC independent software vendors (ISVs) and top 

HPC sites. 

Organizations like Arizona State University Research Computing have turned to open-source software like Omnia, a set of tools for automating the deployment of open source or publicly available Slurm and Kubernetes workload management along with libraries, frameworks, operators, services, platforms and applications.

The Omnia software stack was created to help simplify and speed the process of building environments for mixed workloads by abstracting away the manual steps that can slow provisioning and lead to configuration errors. It was designed to speed and simplify the process of deploying and managing environments for mixed workloads, including simulation, high throughput computing, machine learning, deep learning and data analytics.

Members of the open-source software community contribute code and documentation updates to feature requests and bug reports. They also provide open forums for conversations about feature ideas and potential implementation solutions. As the open-source project grows and expands, so does the technical governance committee, with representation from top contributors and stakeholders.

“We have ASU engineers on my team working directly with the Dell engineers on the Omnia team,” said Douglas Jennewein, senior director of Arizona State University (ASU) Research Computing. “We’re working on code and providing feedback and direction on what we should look at next. It’s been a very rewarding effort… We’re paving not just the path for ASU but the path for advanced computing.”

ASU teams also use Open OnDemand, an open source HPC portal that allows users to log in to a HPC cluster via a traditional Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) terminal or via a web-based interface that uses Open OnDemand. Once connected, they can upload and download files; create, edit, submit and monitor jobs; run applications; and more via a web browser in a cloud-like experience with no client software to install and configure. 

Some Hot New Features of Open-Source Software for HPC  

Here is a sampling of some of the latest features in open-source software available to HPC application developers.

Dynamically change a user’s environment by adding or removing directories to the PATH environment variable. This makes it easier to run specific software in specific folders without updating the PATH environment variable and rebooting. It’s especially useful when third-party applications point to conflicting versions of the same libraries or objects.Choice of host operating system (OS) provisioned on bare metal. The speed and accuracy of applications are inherently affected by the host OS installed on the compute node. This provides bare metal options of different operating systems in the lab to be able to choose the one working optimally at any given time and best suited for an HPC application.Provide low-cost block storage that natively uses Network File System (NFS).  This adds flexible scalability and is ideal for persistent, long-term storage. Use telemetry and visualization on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux can take advantage of telemetry and visualization features to view power consumption, temperatures, and other operational metrics. BOSS RAID controller support. Redundant array of independent disks (RAID) arrays use multiple drives to split the I/O load, and are often preferred by HPC developers. 

The benefits of open-source software for HPC are significant. They include the ability to deploy faster, leverage fluid pools of resources, and integrate complete lifecycle management for unified data analytics, AI and HPC clusters.

For more information on and to contribute to the Omnia community, which includes Dell, Intel, university research environments, and many others, visit the Omnia github.

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Intel® Technologies Move Analytics Forward

Data analytics is the key to unlocking the most value you can extract from data across your organization. To create a productive, cost-effective analytics strategy that gets results, you need high performance hardware that’s optimized to work with the software you use.

Modern data analytics spans a range of technologies, from dedicated analytics platforms and databases to deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Just starting out with analytics? Ready to evolve your analytics strategy or improve your data quality? There’s always room to grow, and Intel is ready to help. With a deep ecosystem of analytics technologies and partners, Intel accelerates the efforts of data scientists, analysts, and developers in every industry. Find out more about Intel advanced analytics.

IT Leadership

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As the threat of climate change looms, organizations across every sector are focused on driving sustainable progress and innovation. Most of these organizations are measuring success based on their stated goals in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives and results. 

Now there is a way to quantify and verify those achievements. It’s called Project Alvarium and its mission is to create a framework and open APIs that help organizations reliably and securely quantify trust in data collected and analyzed near the point of conception. This secure data can deliver near real-time insights into an operations’ carbon footprint, thus increasing transparency and accuracy in reporting. 

Why Valid Sustainability Measurement Matters

As part of the imperative to slow or reverse global warming, some governments are regulating emission levels over time. Public pressure on companies and industries to reduce their carbon footprints is also having a major impact, especially among investors who want to align their hopes for environmental repair and renewal with where they invest their money.

Many companies claim that they pursue environmentally sustainable best practices when it comes to energy usage and pollution, yet few regularly report their results. In June, Bloomberg reported that a financial institution was fined by the U.S. Security and  Exchange Commission for falsely stating that some of the firm’s mutual funds had undergone ESG quality reviews. These regulatory efforts are an attempt to combat “greenwashing,” or incorrect reporting and reimbursements related to fraudulent or unsubstantiated claims about the environmentally responsible practices of companies. 

This begs the question: How can the carbon footprint of companies ― from employees to devices, materials, and processes ― be measured and quantified?

Project Alvarium

Available for use by any industry, Project Alvarium includes tools for monitoring, reporting, and verifying metrics in data confidence fabrics (DCFs) that quantify trust in data delivered from devices to applications. This open-source trust framework and software development kit (SDK), hosted by the Linux Foundation and announced in 2021, is the culmination a four-year collaboration among Dell, Intel, Arm, VMware, ZEDEDA, the IOTA Foundation, and ClimateCHECK. Trust in data, the applications and infrastructure used are quantified in a confidence score. The dashboard can be customized to include specific algorithms and indices related to different industries. Trust fabrics also make it easier to scale data and network security compliance requirements and to monetize data.

The project represents a collaborative effort to unify open source and commercial trust insertion technologies in a standardized environment. There is no single data confidence fabric. Instead, each organization can build their own with preferred technologies using the Alvarium framework. 

In a home environment, for example, there are many different Internet of Things (IoT) devices, from TVs and laptops to smartphones, cars, digital assistants, security cameras, and kitchen appliances. All are supported by intersecting trust fabrics from different vendors. Project Alvarium’s data confidence fabric can be adapted to a home environment to facilitate scalable, trusted, secure collaboration across heterogenous ecosystems of applications and services connected to an open, interoperable edge. Most recently, Alvarium has been put to work in helping to define what data confidence looks like in the climate industry.

Measuring and Quantifying Environmental Impacts

Recently the Project Alvarium framework was used to adapt an automated measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) solution at a biodigestion energy and composting facility at a winery in Chile. It processes data from sensors measuring water, solids, gasses, and anaerobic digestion processes to provide real-time insights into the facility’s carbon footprint. 

Deployed at the edge, it is available as a blockchain solution with high levels of trust, transparency, and security. The solution at the facility has enabled the local utility in Chile, Bio Energía, to replace manual process reviews with continuous, real-time, trustworthy monitoring and reporting that provides a much more accurate understanding of how different innovations impact carbon emissions. 

This type of trustworthy sustainability reporting provides the public with validated information on company practices. It can lower barriers to carbon credit issuance and lure more investors to fund businesses that are introducing new innovations to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Learn more about Project Alvarium and edge computing solutions at Dell Technologies.

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Intel® Technologies Move Analytics Forward

Data analytics is the key to unlocking the most value you can extract from data across your organization. To create a productive, cost-effective analytics strategy that gets results, you need high performance hardware that’s optimized to work with the software you use.

Modern data analytics spans a range of technologies, from dedicated analytics platforms and databases to deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Just starting out with analytics? Ready to evolve your analytics strategy or improve your data quality? There’s always room to grow, and Intel is ready to help. With a deep ecosystem of analytics technologies and partners, Intel accelerates the efforts of data scientists, analysts, and developers in every industry. Find out more about Intel advanced analytics.

IT Leadership