The AI Ladder

Robert D. Thomas is the general manager of IBM Data and ArtificialIntelligence. He directs IBM's product investment strategy, salesand marketing, expert labs, and global software product development. Major product brands under Rob's leadership include Watson, Db2, Netezza, Cognos, SPSS, and InfoSphere. Since joining IBM's softwareunit, Mr. Thomas has held roles of increasing responsibilityincluding business development, product engineering, sales andmarketing, and general management. He has overseen four acquisitions by the firm representing more than $2.5 billion in transaction value. Mr. Thomas trained in economics at Vanderbilt University, earninghis BA in Economics. During his MBA from the University of Florida, Mr. Thomas worked in equity research, learning applied economics, finance, and financial analysis. Mr. Thomas has published two books: Big Data Revolution: WhatFarmers, Doctors, and Insurance Agents Can Teach Us About Patterns in Big Data (John Wiley & Sons, 2015), and The End of Tech Companies (self-published, 2016), educating business leaders on how to navigate digital disruption in every industry. Today, he writes extensively on his blog robdthomas.com. Paul C. Zikopoulos is the Vice President of Cognitive BigData Systems at IBM. Paul has more than 23 years of experience in data, and is seen as a global expert in Big Data and Analytic technologies. Independent groups often recognize Paul as a thought leader with nominations to SAP's"Top 50 Big Data Twitter Influencers", Maptive's "Top 100 Big Data Experts to Follow in 2016", "Big Data Republic's "Most Influential", Onalytica's "Big Data Top 100 Influencers and Brands", and Analytics Week "Thought Leaders in Big Data and Analytics" lists. Big Data Made Simple noted him as one of the "Top 200 Big Data Thought Leaders on Twitter", Technopedia listed him one of its "Big Data Experts to Follow", and GreyCampus included him on their list of "150 Most Influential People in Big Data & Hadoop". He has also been featured on "60 Minutes", speaking on the topic of Big Data, and advises various universities on their graduate-level analytics programs. Paul has written hundreds of magazine articles and 19 books, including "Big Data: Beyond the Hype", "Hadoop for Dummies", "Harness the Power of Big Data", "Understanding Big Data", "New Dynamic InMemory Analytics for the Era of Big Data", "Risk Free Agile Scaling", "DB2 Certification for Dummies", and "DB2 for Dummies. In his spare time, Paul is active in bolstering Women in Technology and is an advisory board member for Women 2.0, which works to close the gender gaps in tech companies. Paul enjoys all sorts of sporting activities (including the futile resistance and transformation into a "Horse Dad"). Ultimately, Paul is trying to figure out the world according to Chloe--his daughter, whom he notes didn't come with a handbook and is more complex than the topic of BigData, but more fun too.