Deploying Smart Solutions and Private 5G with NTT DATA’s Bill Baver

This is Textron tv. Hey everyone, welcome back here to techron tv. I'm really happy to have on our next guest here, bill Beaver.

Bill is the Vice President of SMART Platform for NTT Data and tt of course, pretty well known company, not a small company. Hey, bill, welcome to Tech Drunk tv. It's great to have you on here.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Great to be here.

Thanks. Nice to have you. As I mentioned, bill, um, well we're going to get into what the smart, what's the, the smart platform kind of line of NTT data.

But before we do that, you're the vice President for Smart platform, but I'm assuming that's not what you, you've done other things in your life. Share with our audience a little bit about your own journey. Sure.

Um, I've been in, uh, the IT industry more than two decades, and it's really changed over the time, uh, that that's been going on. One of the biggest changes has been around, um, the explosion of data that comes and all the things that come with it, and then just not the explosion of data. What the heck do you do with the data as it comes about?

So, uh, you know, really my focus has been how to use that data as it goes. Where's the innovation you can do for it as you go forward, and then how do we turn it into value for whoever the customer is and for, you know, when it's a, a city, the citizens, or if it's a manufacturing plant in that area. But we go across many different industries that, that are out there, and that's how I've grown as, as it's come about from account ownership to, to full scale use of, uh, this data analytics out there.

Excellent, excellent. And Bill, as, as I mentioned, NTT is is not as small company, you know, it probably one of the largest companies in the world, you know, on many different counts, right. But, um, NTT data specifically, I think that encompassed what used to be NTT Cybersecurity as well, or it's, that's still a separate unit, That there's still a, a security side out there.

But NTT data combined, what used to be the NTT Limited business and the NTT data business out there into one company now NTT data and, and the focus has you really been around how do we take value to our customers out, out there across the full spectrum of the IT landscape. Um, and you know, some in innovation, some in in other parts, but it's really that full scale end-to-end IT provider. Excellent.

And as I mentioned, your vice president smart platform, well, today everything is smart, right? And AI and all that stuff, but what do we mean by smart platform? So it's really a way to take disparate data sources and then interpret them through AI as well as machine learning type capabilities and give outcome based results for the customer, whoever that customer is.

Um, and, and really how do you make data, um, come to life for you that you can use that. And then all the support that can come with it are the other capabilities that NTT data can bring from a communication to devices to, um, unique customer experiences that, that are available. So it's really an advanced analytics platform on top of the data that you get out there.

I love it. And look, this is, you know, it's funny, I was just recording our tech strong gang show when we were talking. Well, it started with, you know, I don't know if you saw the news they're bringing back Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor online to No, actually it's in your neck of the woods.

You're absolutely, yeah. So I'm sure you heard about this. Yes.

Right. To power, much exclusively to power a Microsoft data center. Obviously smart platforms, next gen stuff using ai, which is what's behind this data center boom on top of everyone's mind.

Uh, recently you guys were announced as the being selected by the city of Brownsville, Texas, which has a, it's not, you know, to give them credit, it's not from today. They've been on this kick to be a smart city, uh, for some time now, but they tapped that team data to work with. Can you give us the scoop?

What's going on there? Yeah, absolutely. So, um, Brownsville is, is on a, a growth path, as you said.

They have a lot of new, uh, companies moving into the area as well as their citizens are trying to make, um, to make it more value from what the city provides. So what Brownsville really is on that journey to go around and say, how do we get ahead of the curve? How do we become a leader, uh, to attract more, more companies, more citizens and, and grow our community with value to the citizens as it goes about?

So that's really what they were looking to do. And then, um, how do you support that with technology as, uh, where, where it's appropriate, you don't always need technology, but where it's appropriate, how do you pick the right things to support that growth? Yeah.

Um, so give us an, you know, what's actually going on here now then? So, um, they start with trying to understand what are the, what are the things they can provide their citizens and more services as well as operations within their departments to really say how can they make their, their daily lives better, both from a work and a a citizen perspective. And to do that, they need other supporting technology.

So there's a, a private 5G technology that NTT data can provide that helps them move the data from areas that are, that are having difficulty being connected or expensive, being connected, and, and that's available to the workers of the city. So they can go around and do their communication, but also then the data that comes from that communication can now start to, to turn value for the citizens. But from a safety perspective, uh, where you can communicate, you know, what's happening in an area, they, they have some area parts of the city.

They're trying to, um, you know, make people more aware of what's happening, uh, going on. And then how those turn into services for the citizens to make their daily lives better from a, a safety or a movement around the city or services the city can provide, such as traffic services that, that go there as an example. That's where they're, they're pushing in and that's kind of the early part of what we're doing with them.

I love it. Um, so is, is this private 5G to the last mile even, if you will? It's, it's some degree of that, yes.

Private 5G is the, the movement of the data, uh, from other sources that it's hard to do today or it's costly and it's, um, you know, conflicting with other carriers out there. It's really for the use of the city, city, uh, officials and the city employees to move that data around or to communicate off of it. And then that's one of the end-to-end services that NTT data can provide because that starts to, I like to call it a network highway.

It's kind of moving the, the data across that network highway, uh, so they can start understanding what's happening and then make decisions off of that data that that's moving around. Is it replacing wifi in some places like that? It can replace wifi or compliment wifi.

So wifi more of a, compli more to the, the citizens or general use, uh, for people or for areas, but it's in the hard to reach areas 'cause wifi can be costly to get into some areas that, um, that are difficult to get communications to. And, and this allows you to put new devices there to move that data more cost efficiently, but then also opens up parts of the city or the parts of the region that weren't getting those services. 'cause people weren't aware of the data that, that what was happening in those areas.

So it, it kind of equalizes things out for across the landscape of the, the environment for that city. Sure. So you, you've used the word term data a bunch of times here in describing what we're doing.

What, what specific kinds of data are we talking about Bill? So it's, it's data about, uh, traffic patterns, vehicles movement, uh, where people are at, um, what what is happening with events in the city that are going on and tying all those together with weather data that's happening as well. Um, Brownsville does some games of Texas activities.

So they have, uh, some sporting activities that go on that they want to know and make, um, the visitors understand how to get around the city, where to go, and then the city officials to say, this is what's happening in those areas. So, and, and by happening where people are conjugating where traffic is going, um, what events are happening and going to happen. And, and our analytics, the advanced analytics we do is both real time and predictive.

'cause we start to understand what's happening and that's where the AI side comes in to start to give them awareness ahead of time of what's happening. Got it. Love it.

Bill. I mean, kudos to Brownsville and as I said, I've been aware of this initiative for, for a number of years now, but this isn't the only place in the world, right, where we're trying to build smart cities with smart solutions. I know there's the huge undertaking in Saudi Arabia, for instance, and, uh, in other parts of the world too, is is that TT working in some of these other kind of, I call 'em labs at this point, right?

They're kinda lab experiments. Yeah, it's, it's kind of labs. Um, and, and I always say, you know, there's no such thing as a smart city.

There's sections of cities that are smart and you try to get returns there. Uh, we do a lot with the city of Las Vegas. Um, they're one of our other, probably our first client for the labs there.

Uh, we do things with, uh, department of Transportation. We do things globally in, um, in Europe and in Asia Pacific where we do a lot of this. And most recently, one that we're doing with, um, in Australia, our smart solutions around, uh, uh, regrowing a, a rainforest in the Daintree forest, uh, out there.

So, so that we're using our data and it's using data from what they're doing in soil and different data sources and it comes together for us to, to help them understand and, and use it other places as they go as well. Excellent. So Bill, where can people get more information about smart platform and maybe some of these use cases?

So they're on the NTT data website globally, um, that's out there and, uh, that is available and then goes into each of our regions. But there's a case study, uh, out there that goes about, um, a, a case study section that talks about where you can find, uh, things about Las Vegas, the announcement for Brownsville. There's one with venues.

We do something with the Washington Nationals baseball team to help them. And that's cool. Indianapolis Motor Speedway, those are other venues that have a lot of people and a lot of decisions and um, and, and it uses a lot of different ways.

You know, there's a safety aspect, but there's also a, a value for the visitor that goes there. So that's why we kind of say it's the citizen and the visitor that use it, but then operations can use it as well. But all of those are listed on, on, on our n TT data website.

Very cool. Hey Bill, I want to thank you for coming on here and talking to us today. It was pretty cool.

Um, you know, this is tomorrow's technology today and, uh, it, it'll be interesting to see how I haven't been Brownsville in a while, but be interesting to see how this all plays out. Appreciate Anna, thanks for the time and appreciate the opportunity. Alrighty.

Bill Beaver, vice President Smart platform for NTT data, talking about their recent, uh, collaboration with the city of Brownsville and Texas, as well as all over the world, from Australia to Europe to here in the us Las Vegas as well. Sounds like a fun play, like you're doing some traveling bill. Absolutely, absolutely.

Take care. We'll have you on soon. We're gonna take a break here on Textron tv.

We'll be back in just a minute.