Last week, I was in São Paulo, Brazil for IBM Systems Technical University. With over 12 million people, it is the most-populous city in the Americas. Our venue was the Club Med Lake Paradise resort on the outskirts of town. We had about 700 attendees.

We had several local speakers do the opening session. Here is my recap:

Marcelo Porto, IBM General Manager for Brazil

This year, IBM Brazil celebrates 100 year anniversary. This all happened because Valentim Boucas persuaded IBM then-President Thomas Watson, Sr. to approve the establishment of a Rio de Janeiro office for the sale of IBM machines beginning in 1917.

(For more on the life of Valentim Boucas, see this [New York Times obituary)

For 100 years now, IBM has thrived with a set of core values. In every era in the past, IBM systems have been perfect for the business needs at the time, from punch cards to personal computers. But what got us here won't get us there in the future. The biggest challenge to transformation is people and culture. We must break the chains that hold us to the past. IBM drives disruption.

To prepare for the future, Marcelo recommended the following. First, learn English, because the English language is the "API of Business". Second, keep a curious mind. Seek out new things to learn. The new world needs skills and expertise in a variety of areas. Third, watch the movie "Hidden Figures", starring the IBM mainframe computer.

IBM Watson computer now speaks and understands Brazilian Portuguese language. Groupo Fleury uses Watson for genomics research. MRV Engineering uses this for chatbots. Mae de deus Hospital uses this for Oncology, as cancer patients now dominate the percentage of patients there. Walmart uses Blockchain to focus on food safety.

[A majority of Brazilians have never been inside a museum.] There are probably many reasons for this, but among them is the feeling that art can seem inaccessible unless you've studied it.

IBM Watson is used at Pinacoteca de São Paulo Museum to offer "Voz de Arte", the ability to ask IBM Watson about each painting in handheld smartphone devices. An example of this was available in the Solution Center.

In addition to natural language processing (NLP), IBM Watson can also do image recognition, a task normally only humans could do.

Watson can validate signatures, perform facial recognition at different angles, and even identify shirts, pants and shoes of fashion models in photographs.

Companies and organizations that are unable to transform data into insights and business decisions will fail.

Mauro D'Angelo, IBM Strategy and Business Development for Brazil

Why are companies like Uber and Airbnb successful? Mauro felt that it was because they had a proper Cloud infrastructure combined with the right data architecture.

(In this case, "success" is based on company valuation, often billions of US dollars. However, many of these companies are not profitable, losing millions of dollars in an aggressive effort to gain customers and establish their platform. It might take 12 to 24 months before a new customer becomes profitable.)

The data explosion is driving digital transformation. Cognitive systems must understand natural language, reason, learn and interact with humans. Machine Learning is much like training a puppy. You need to reward good behavior and fix bad behavior, and be patient, as it takes a long time.

In USA, patients asking Doctors for a diagnosis get only 50 percent correct on first consultation. Often, additional doctors or additional tests are needed to finally get correct assessments. In Brazil, it is probably less than 50 percent. Hopefully, Watson will help improve this.

Watson can also detect emotional tone and personality in social media. Is a customer angry? This could help prioritize which customer issues to address first.

Schools have not changed since the days of Aristotle. Mauro showed a picture of a school taken in 1934, and a picture of the same classroom, taken recently, showing it is nearly the same. Students want to learn anytime, anywhere, and from any channel.

At Georgia Tech University, a professor told his engineering students that there were nine "Teacher Assistants" (TAs) available to help answer questions online. One of these was [Jill Watson], which was the IBM Watson computer responding to the students. The students could not tell that Jill was not human!

In traditional schools, a teacher may reach only 50 to 60 students. Compare this to [Khan Academy] that offers video instruction that have had over 1.3 million views!

Frank Koja, IBM Systems Vice President for Brazil

When you buy something over the internet, what is your decision criteria? Often, it is lowest cost. Digital transformation often requires re-invention.

Trust beats risk. The new IBM z14 mainframe focuses on trust, with end-to-end encryption, Blockchain and Machine Learning. zHyperLink drastically improves the connection between mainframe and IBM DS8880 storage. IBM is helping over 400 clients adopting Blockchain.

The FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R models are 30x faster than traditional disk systems, and more dense, able to consolidate 20 racks down to one.

The new "PowerAI" bundle combines together a complete offering for Machine Learning and Deep Learning (ML/DL) for Power systems, taking advantage of GPU and NVlink capabilities.

The "waitless" world has arrived.

This was a good start for the conference. The three speakers of the opening session were passionate of what they were talking about, and people were excited to learn more as the week progressed.

technorati tags: IBM, #ibmtechu, #IBMstu2017, Marcelo Porto, Valentim Boucas, Thomas Watson, Hidden Figures, IBM Watson, Groupo Fleury, MRV Engineering, Mae de deus, Walmart, Blockchain, Pinacoteca Museum, Voz de Arte, Natural Language Processing, image recognition, Mauro D'Angelo, Uber, Airbnb, Cognitive Systems, Aristotle, Georgia Tech, Jill Watson, Khan Academy, IBM z14 mainframe, zHyperLink, DS8880, FlashSystem, FlashSystem A9000, FlashSystem A900R, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, GPU, NVlink, waitless world