Home > Companies > Thought Leaders > Q&A with Aaron Pang, Associate Director, Business Transformation at Ernst & Young

Q&A with Aaron Pang, Associate Director, Business Transformation at Ernst & Young

Aaron Pang, Associate Director, Business Transformation at EY, created his first e-commerce business and online marketing business at age 21 and achieved over one million US revenue in the first year. In 2015, he led the home market of a global successful logistic-tech venture, Lalamove. After that, he went on to lead a three-year transformational program for a global accounting body Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA). He is the creator and host of the Transformative Purpose podcast, author of two books Reborn Digital and The Asian Dad.

I believe when all of us focus on becoming a better future self, together, we can co-create a better world for the next generation. Children are our future.


MEDIA 7: Actions speak louder than words, and yours tell an incredible story. Which of your professional milestones are the most memorable?
AARON PANG: While technology has given us many benefits and convenience, it has also resulted in challenges to humanity. As we are more connected digitally, we are less connected as humans.
I build community to inspire. I believe when all of us focus on becoming a better future self, together, we can co-create a better world for the next generation. Children are our future.

Below are some of the most memorable milestones:

1. Reborn Digital, a book that I authored in 2021 has become one of the bestsellers in Hong Kong and Macau. I enjoyed the journey of writing because it taught me how to find time to write while juggling a young child and a full-time job. The book is suitable for anyone who wants to understand more about the new digital economy and how to transform.

2. Every week I speak to an inspirational guest through our podcast, Transformative Purpose. The podcast aims at building a global community through positivity and helping others to discover their north star. After one month of launch, we have received global support from a diverse international audience from CEOs to parents to children. What struck me the most is that we now have people from Vietnam, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Australia helping with the vision.

3. The digital transformation journey at a very traditional company Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) and redesigned many of its digital and non-digital service and channel experience which impacted over 65,000 members and students as well as the public in the last few years.


M7: What inspired you to become a successful entrepreneur when you were 21 years old?
AP: I majored in actuary in year one and then changed to marketing and management double major after I realized actuary was not for me. Thinking back, the rare combination, reading management books, and following leadership gurus including the likes of Andrew Grove, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, back in the day, has probably taught me to think about problems creatively and logically.


I dream of a world where everyone knows about their north star, focuses on becoming a better future self, work with one another together, to co-create a better future for the next generation.



M7: Your first online marketing business’ revenue turnover was over a million in the US market within the first year of its launch. What was the strategy behind achieving such a grand success in a short period of time?
AP: I love challenges and enjoy spotting opportunities, analyzing data, doing experiments to make things better. The success came from relentless trying and failing. I think there were four key factors that drove the success.

- Firstly, be opportunistic. The business was only making US$10-$20 net every day in its early days. It took a while to figure out the winning formula.

- Secondly, be analytical. We did a lot of research analyzing data from many different sources.

- Thirdly, be resilient and keep testing. We did a lot of experiments to try what worked and what did not work. Similar to Thomas Edison, he proved there were hundreds of other ways in which light bulbs wouldn’t work. It all depends on how you look at an issue.

- Lastly, the power of context played a role as well. We were in the early days of e-commerce right after the dot-com crash. Despite having no technical knowledge, I taught myself how to build several e-commerce and drop-shipping websites, market our brands online, and focus on finding ways to provide more value to customers which traditional retail value chains could not fulfil.


M7: As the Managing Director of Lalamove, how have you helped the company become a globally recognized logistic-tech venture?
AP: I was the Country Leader between 2015 and 2016, a period where we were facing fierce competition from our local competitors and we also had very high attrition. To break out from the red-ocean and not to be seen as offering a commoditized last-mile delivery service, we launched new services to differentiate from our competition, such as motorcycle, standardized door-to-door shipping for retail and luxury retail eCommerce including Google, Zalora and the like. We also formed many strategic partnerships to improve the customer and driver community in Hong Kong.

Operationally, we streamlined and standardized a lot of our operations to improve the scalability, consistency and quality of our services. To name a few, we introduced onboarding, engagement and offboarding strategies for drivers. To tackle the high employee turnover in customer service, we introduced rotation, created a career path, defined service protocols to handle customer and driver complaints. To help with engagement, I allocated part of the operating budget to customer service, which they can use for team-building.

Because of my passion for data, we were quite diligent in tracking customers and drivers’ data and their behaviors. I created a new role for data scientists and we co-created leading indicators, e.g. standard deviations to track customer and driver anomalies so that we can step in timely.


M7: Can you please take us through the transformational program that you implemented at Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) that made it a global leader today?
AP: There were three key stages, build, operate and transfer. We first assembled a centralized digital team that supported all the business units. To ensure timely decision-making because organizations such as HKICPA and the like tend to be quite bureaucratic, I led a steering committee that directly reported to the council members.

During the implementation, we focused on the customer-facing digital touch-points with members and students first. We conducted surveys from time to time to gather their feedback and satisfaction. We celebrated small wins and then took on the more challenging enterprise innovation around customer data, servicing model and process optimization. Almost 100% of our members were satisfied with the digital improvements.

Lastly, we upskilled and transferred the digital ownership back to the business and IT departments.


Treasure every breath in life because someone else might not have a chance to. Learn to focus on the means and enjoy the discovery. Life is like a book. You don’t know the next chapter that lies ahead of you. But what you do today, can influence the narrative of the next chapter.



M7: What is the goal you hope to achieve through your Transformative Purpose podcast?
AP: I dream of a world where everyone knows about their north star, focuses on becoming a better future self, work with one another together, to co-create a better future for the next generation. Children are our future.


M7: You are a proud author of two successfully published books: Reborn Digital and The Asian Dad. Can you please tell us more about them?
AP: My first book was inspired by my son.
On April 9 2019, the day before my son turned three months, he suffocated. I thought he would die in my arms. That experience made me re-look at the world through the lens of a young child. I wrote my first book, The Asian Dad so that one day my son would understand the purpose of parenting and what his parents had to go through. I published my first Chinese paperback in June 2021. The book aims to educate companies and others on how to become Pi and T-shaped talent by understanding more about digital transformation and how to transform.


M7: You are an inspiration for ambitious youngsters today. How would you advise them to stay motivated and keep working hard to achieve their goals?
AP: Our values and behaviours are shaped by years of upbringing and life experiences.
The most important thing is to stay healthy.
I was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy twice in my life. I was not able to smile, blink, eat, and speak clearly for about nine months. Treasure every breath in life because someone else might not have a chance to.
Learn to focus on the means and enjoy the discovery. Life is like a book. You don’t know the next chapter that lies ahead of you. But what you do today, can influence the narrative of the next chapter. Steve Jobs founded his company in the 70s, it took almost 30 years before we saw iPhone.

Success in life is not about how much money we have made or our job titles. The world is broken today, it is more divided than ever before. Do our part and help make it a better place by being human to one another. We should measure ourselves by the impact we made on the world and the number of people we have helped.

I try to train my brain to think these ways and then build an ecosystem to reinforce these values. Ecosystem meaning, your mentors, your language (do you say I instead of We), your habits (are you burned out? Do you exercise?) and then experiment (if there’s something you are unhappy about, be the change). I just happen to use my voice and book to inspire others to find their north star. Life is a discovery. If I can do it, so can you.

ABOUT ERNST & YOUNG

Ernst & Young exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets. Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate. Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today.

More THOUGHT LEADERS

Q&A with Charles Southwood, Vice President, N. Europe and MEA at Denodo

Media 7 | September 15, 2021

Charles Southwood, Regional VP at Denodo Technologies is responsible for the company’s business revenues in Northern Europe, Middle East and South Africa. He is passionate about working in rapidly moving and innovative markets to support customer success and to align IT solutions that meet the changing business needs. With a degree in engineering from Imperial College London, Charles has over 20 years of experience in data integration, big data, IT infrastructure/IT operations and Business Analytics....

Read More

Q&A with Vishal Srivastava, Vice President (Model Validation) at Citi

Media 7 | September 8, 2021

Vishal Srivastava, Vice President (Model Validation) at Citi was invited as a keynote speaker to present on Fraud Analytics using Machine Learning at the International Automation in Banking Summit in New York in November 2019. Vishal has experience in quantitative risk modeling using advanced engineering, statistical, and machine learning technologies. His academic qualifications in combination with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Finance have enabled him to challenge quantitative risk models with scientific rigor. Vishal’s doctoral thesis included the development of statistical and machine learning-based risk models—some of which are currently being used commercially. Vishal has 120+ peer-reviewed citations in areas such as risk management, quantitative modeling, machine learning, and predictive analytics....

Read More

Q&A with Sadiqah Musa, Co-Founder at Black In Data

Media 7 | September 1, 2021

Sadiqah Musa, Co-Founder at Black In Data, is also an experienced Senior Data Analyst at Guardian News and Media with a demonstrated history of working in the energy and publishing sectors. She is skilled in Advanced Excel, SQL, Python, data visualization, project management, and Data Analysis and has a strong professional background with a Master of Science (MSc) from The University of Manchester....

Read More

Q&A with Charles Southwood, Vice President, N. Europe and MEA at Denodo

Media 7 | September 15, 2021

Charles Southwood, Regional VP at Denodo Technologies is responsible for the company’s business revenues in Northern Europe, Middle East and South Africa. He is passionate about working in rapidly moving and innovative markets to support customer success and to align IT solutions that meet the changing business needs. With a degree in engineering from Imperial College London, Charles has over 20 years of experience in data integration, big data, IT infrastructure/IT operations and Business Analytics....

Read More

Q&A with Vishal Srivastava, Vice President (Model Validation) at Citi

Media 7 | September 8, 2021

Vishal Srivastava, Vice President (Model Validation) at Citi was invited as a keynote speaker to present on Fraud Analytics using Machine Learning at the International Automation in Banking Summit in New York in November 2019. Vishal has experience in quantitative risk modeling using advanced engineering, statistical, and machine learning technologies. His academic qualifications in combination with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Finance have enabled him to challenge quantitative risk models with scientific rigor. Vishal’s doctoral thesis included the development of statistical and machine learning-based risk models—some of which are currently being used commercially. Vishal has 120+ peer-reviewed citations in areas such as risk management, quantitative modeling, machine learning, and predictive analytics....

Read More

Q&A with Sadiqah Musa, Co-Founder at Black In Data

Media 7 | September 1, 2021

Sadiqah Musa, Co-Founder at Black In Data, is also an experienced Senior Data Analyst at Guardian News and Media with a demonstrated history of working in the energy and publishing sectors. She is skilled in Advanced Excel, SQL, Python, data visualization, project management, and Data Analysis and has a strong professional background with a Master of Science (MSc) from The University of Manchester....

Read More

Related News

Machine Learning

InterSystems Introduces Two New Cloud-Native Smart Data Services to Accelerate Database and Machine Learning Application Development

InterSystems | January 12, 2024

InterSystems, a creative data technology provider dedicated to helping customers solve their most critical scalability, interoperability, and speed problems, today announced general availability of the InterSystems IRIS Cloud SQL and InterSystems IRIS Cloud IntegratedML® services. These fully managed cloud-native smart data services empower developers to build cloud-native database and machine learning (ML) applications in SQL environments with ease. With Cloud SQL and Cloud IntegratedML, developers can access a next generation relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) that is fast and easy to provision and use. Embedded AutoML capabilities allow developers to easily develop and execute machine learning models with just a few SQL-like commands in a fully-managed, elastic cloud-native environment. Shaping a complete data management portfolio for mission-critical applications As part of the InterSystems Cloud portfolio of smart data services, Cloud SQL and Cloud IntegratedML provide application developers with access to InterSystems proven enterprise-class capabilities as self-service, fully managed offerings on Amazon Web Services (AWS), while providing a fast and seamless on-ramp to the full suite of capabilities in InterSystems IRIS® data platform. InterSystems IRIS is a next-generation data platform designed for organizations implementing smart data fabrics that provide powerful database management, integration, and application development capabilities. By consolidating these capabilities into a single product, InterSystems IRIS accelerates the time it takes to realize value from data, simplifies overall system architectures, and reduces both maintenance effort and costs. “We are excited for the capabilities of InterSystems IRIS to be exposed through these new, easy to deploy and easy to use services,” said Scott Gnau, Global Head of Data Platforms at InterSystems. “With native support for AutoML, we give developers the power to build comprehensive, predictive, and prescriptive applications.” Fully managed, enterprise-class reliability with InterSystems IRIS Cloud SQL Cloud SQL makes it easy for application developers to leverage advanced relational database capabilities as a fully managed, secure, scalable, high performance, highly available cloud-native database-as-a-service (DBaaS). Cloud SQL delivers the following benefits for SQL developers: Extremely high performance, especially for ingesting and processing incoming data and performing SQL queries on the data with low latency at scale Fast and easy to provision and use Ability to easily connect client applications via JDBC, ODBC, DB-API, and ADO.NET drivers Automated security, data encryption, and backups Automation of machine learning tasks with InterSystems IRIS Cloud IntegratedML Available as an additional cloud managed service for InterSystems IRIS Cloud SQL customers, Cloud IntegratedML extends the capabilities of Cloud SQL to enable SQL developers to quickly build, tune, and execute machine learning models with just a few SQL-like commands, without moving or copying data to a different environment. A significant advantage of Cloud IntegratedML is the elimination of the need to transfer or replicate data to an external platform to build ML models, or to move ML models to a different environment for execution. Cloud IntegratedML delivers the following benefits for SQL developers: Automation of machine learning processes and resource-intensive tasks such as feature engineering, model development, and fine-tuning Seamless integration of models developed and trained with Cloud IntegratedML within Cloud SQL, facilitating real-time predictive insights and prescriptive actions in response to events and transactions This comprehensive suite of smart data services establishes the InterSystems Cloud portfolio of smart data services as an optimal choice for SQL developers seeking a robust, high-performance database solution tailored to their needs. The new Cloud SQL and Cloud IntegratedML services are available through InterSystems Developer Hub. About InterSystems Established in 1978, InterSystems is the leading provider of next-generation solutions for enterprise digital transformations in the healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and supply chain sectors. Its cloud-first data platforms solve interoperability, speed, and scalability problems for large organizations around the globe. InterSystems is committed to excellence through its award-winning, 24×7 support for customers and partners in more than 80 countries. Privately held and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, InterSystems has 38 offices in 28 countries worldwide. For more information, please visit InterSystems.com.

Read More

Data Architecture

SingleStore Announces Real-time Data Platform to Further Accelerate AI, Analytics and Application Development

SingleStore | January 25, 2024

SingleStore, the database that allows you to transact, analyze and contextualize data, today announced powerful new capabilities — making it the industry’s only real-time data platform. With its latest release, dubbed SingleStore Pro Max, the company announced ground-breaking features like indexed vector search, an on-demand compute service for GPUs/ CPUs and a new free shared tier, among several other innovative new products. Together, these capabilities shrink development cycles while providing the performance and scale that customers need for building applications. In an explosive generative AI landscape, companies are looking for a modern data platform that’s ready for enterprise AI use cases — one with best-available tooling to accelerate development, simultaneously allowing them to marry structured or semi-structured data residing in enterprise systems with unstructured data lying in data lakes. “We believe that a data platform should both create new revenue streams while also decreasing technological costs and complexity for customers. And this can only happen with simplicity at the core,” said Raj Verma, CEO, SingleStore. “This isn’t just a product update, it’s a quantum leap… SingleStore is offering truly transformative capabilities in a single platform for customers to build all kinds of real-time applications, AI or otherwise.” “At Adobe, we aim to change the world through digital experiences,” said Matt Newman, Principal Data Architect, Adobe. “SingleStore’s latest release is exciting as it pushes what is possible when it comes to database technology, real-time analytics and building modern applications that support AI workloads. We’re looking forward to these new features as more and more of our customers are seeking ways to take full advantage of generative Al capabilities.” Key new features launched include: Indexed vector search. SingleStore has announced support for vector search using Approximate Nearest Neighbor (ANN) vector indexing algorithms, leading to 800-1,000x faster vector search performance than precise methods (KNN). With both full-text and indexed vector search capabilities, SingleStore offers developers true hybrid search that takes advantage of the full power of SQL for queries, joins, filters and aggregations. These capabilities firmly place SingleStore above vector-only databases that require niche query languages and are not designed to meet enterprise security and resiliency needs. Free shared tier. SingleStore has announced a new cloud-based Free Shared Tier that’s designed for startups and developers to quickly bring their ideas to life — without the need to commit to a paid plan. On-demand compute service for GPUs and CPUs. SingleStore announces a compute service that works alongside SingleStore’s native Notebooks to let developers spin up GPUs and CPUs to run database-adjacent workloads including data preparation, ETL, third-party native application frameworks, etc. This capability brings compute to algorithms, rather than the other way around, enabling developers to build highly performant AI applications safely and securely using SingleStore — without unnecessary data movement. New CDC capabilities for data ingest and egress. To ease the burden and costs of moving data in and out of SingleStore, SingleStore is adding native capabilities for real-time Change Data Capture (CDC) in for MongoDB®, MySQL and ingestion from Apache Iceberg without requiring other third party CDC tools. SingleStore will also support CDC out capabilities that ease migrations and enable the use of SingleStore as a source for other applications and databases like data warehouses and lakehouses. SingleStore Kai™. Now generally available, and ready for both analytical and transactional processing for apps originally built on MongoDB. Announced in public preview in early 2023, SingleStore Kai is an API to deliver over 100x faster analytics on MongoDB® with no query changes or data transformations required. Today, SingleStore Kai supports BSON data format natively, has improved transactional performance, increased performance for arrays and offers industry-leading compatibility with MongoDB query language. Projections: To further advance as the world’s fastest HTAP database, SingleStore has added Projections. Projections allow developers to greatly speed up range filters and group by operations by introducing secondary sort and shard keys. Query performance improvements range from 2-3x or more, depending on the size of the table. With this latest release, SingleStore becomes the industry’s first and only real-time data platform designed for all applications, analytics and AI. SingleStore supports high-throughput ingest performance, ACID transactions and low-latency analytics; and structured, semi-structured (JSON, BSON, text) and unstructured data (vector embeddings of audio, video, images, PDFs, etc.). Finally, SingleStore’s data platform is designed not just with developers in mind, but also ML engineers, data engineers and data scientists. “Our new features and capabilities advance SingleStore’s mission of offering a real-time data platform for the next wave of gen AI and data applications,” said Nadeem Asghar, SVP, Product Management + Strategy at SingleStore. “New features, including vector search, Projections, Apache Iceberg, Scheduled Notebooks, autoscaling, GPU compute services, SingleStore Kai™, and the Free Shared Tier allow startups — as well as global enterprises — to quickly build and scale enterprise-grade real-time AI applications. We make data integration with third-party databases easy with both CDC in and CDC out support.” "Although generative AI, LLM, and vector search capabilities are early stage, they promise to deliver a richer data experience with translytical architecture," states the 2023 report, “Translytical Architecture 2.0 Evolves To Support Distributed, Multimodel, And AI Capabilities,” authored by Noel Yuhanna, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. "Generative AI and LLM can help democratize data through natural language query (NLQ), offering a ChatGPT-like interface. Also, vector storage and index can be leveraged to perform similarity searches to support data intelligence." SingleStore has been on a fast track leading innovation around generative AI. The company’s product evolution has been accompanied by high-momentum growth in customers and surpassing $100M in ARR late last year. SingleStore also recently ranked #2 in the emerging category of vector databases, and was recognized by TrustRadius as a top vector database in 2023. Finally, SingleStore was a winner of InfoWorld’s Technology of the year in the database category. To learn more about SingleStore visit here. About SingleStore SingleStore empowers the world’s leading organizations to build and scale modern applications using the only database that allows you to transact, analyze and contextualize data in real time. With streaming data ingestion, support for both transactions and analytics, horizontal scalability and hybrid vector search capabilities, SingleStore helps deliver 10-100x better performance at 1/3 the costs compared to legacy architectures. Hundreds of customers worldwide — including Fortune 500 companies and global data leaders — use SingleStore to power real-time applications and analytics. Learn more at singlestore.com. Follow us @SingleStoreDB on Twitter or visit www.singlestore.com.

Read More

Big Data Management

The Modern Data Company Recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Integration

The Modern Data Company | January 23, 2024

The Modern Data Company, recognized for its expertise in developing and managing advanced data products, is delighted to announce its distinction as an honorable mention in Gartner's 'Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools,' powered by our leading product, DataOS. “This accolade underscores our commitment to productizing data and revolutionizing data management technologies. Our focus extends beyond traditional data management, guiding companies on their journey to effectively utilize data, realize tangible ROI on their data investments, and harness advanced technologies such as AI, ML, and Large Language Models (LLMs). This recognition is a testament to Modern Data’s alignment with the latest industry trends and our dedication to setting new standards in data integration and utilization.” – Srujan Akula, CEO of The Modern Data Company The inclusion in the Gartner report highlights The Modern Data Company's pivotal role in shaping the future of data integration. Our innovative approach, embodied in DataOS, enables businesses to navigate the complexities of data management, transforming data into a strategic asset. By simplifying data access and integration, we empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their data, driving insights and innovation without disruption. "Modern Data's recognition as an Honorable Mention in the Gartner MQ for Data Integration is a testament to the transformative impact their solutions have on businesses like ours. DataOS has been pivotal in allowing us to integrate multiple data sources, enabling our teams to have access to the data needed to make data driven decisions." – Emma Spight, SVP Technology, MIND 24-7 The Modern Data Company simplifies how organizations manage, access, and interact with data using its DataOS (data operating system) that unifies data silos, at scale. It provides ontology support, graph modeling, and a virtual data tier (e.g. a customer 360 model). From a technical point of view, it closes the gap from conceptual to physical data model. Users can define conceptually what they want and its software traverses and integrates data. DataOS provides a structured, repeatable approach to data integration that enhances agility and ensures high-quality outputs. This shift from traditional pipeline management to data products allows for more efficient data operations, as each 'product' is designed with a specific purpose and standardized interfaces, ensuring consistency across different uses and applications. With DataOS, businesses can expect a transformative impact on their data strategies, marked by increased efficiency and a robust framework for handling complex data ecosystems, allowing for more and faster iterations of conceptual models. About The Modern Data Company The Modern Data Company, with its flagship product DataOS, revolutionizes the creation of data products. DataOS® is engineered to build and manage comprehensive data products to foster data mesh adoption, propelling organizations towards a data-driven future. DataOS directly addresses key AI/ML and LLM challenges: ensuring quality data, scaling computational resources, and integrating seamlessly into business processes. In our commitment to provide open systems, we have created an open data developer platform specification that is gaining wide industry support.

Read More

Machine Learning

InterSystems Introduces Two New Cloud-Native Smart Data Services to Accelerate Database and Machine Learning Application Development

InterSystems | January 12, 2024

InterSystems, a creative data technology provider dedicated to helping customers solve their most critical scalability, interoperability, and speed problems, today announced general availability of the InterSystems IRIS Cloud SQL and InterSystems IRIS Cloud IntegratedML® services. These fully managed cloud-native smart data services empower developers to build cloud-native database and machine learning (ML) applications in SQL environments with ease. With Cloud SQL and Cloud IntegratedML, developers can access a next generation relational database-as-a-service (DBaaS) that is fast and easy to provision and use. Embedded AutoML capabilities allow developers to easily develop and execute machine learning models with just a few SQL-like commands in a fully-managed, elastic cloud-native environment. Shaping a complete data management portfolio for mission-critical applications As part of the InterSystems Cloud portfolio of smart data services, Cloud SQL and Cloud IntegratedML provide application developers with access to InterSystems proven enterprise-class capabilities as self-service, fully managed offerings on Amazon Web Services (AWS), while providing a fast and seamless on-ramp to the full suite of capabilities in InterSystems IRIS® data platform. InterSystems IRIS is a next-generation data platform designed for organizations implementing smart data fabrics that provide powerful database management, integration, and application development capabilities. By consolidating these capabilities into a single product, InterSystems IRIS accelerates the time it takes to realize value from data, simplifies overall system architectures, and reduces both maintenance effort and costs. “We are excited for the capabilities of InterSystems IRIS to be exposed through these new, easy to deploy and easy to use services,” said Scott Gnau, Global Head of Data Platforms at InterSystems. “With native support for AutoML, we give developers the power to build comprehensive, predictive, and prescriptive applications.” Fully managed, enterprise-class reliability with InterSystems IRIS Cloud SQL Cloud SQL makes it easy for application developers to leverage advanced relational database capabilities as a fully managed, secure, scalable, high performance, highly available cloud-native database-as-a-service (DBaaS). Cloud SQL delivers the following benefits for SQL developers: Extremely high performance, especially for ingesting and processing incoming data and performing SQL queries on the data with low latency at scale Fast and easy to provision and use Ability to easily connect client applications via JDBC, ODBC, DB-API, and ADO.NET drivers Automated security, data encryption, and backups Automation of machine learning tasks with InterSystems IRIS Cloud IntegratedML Available as an additional cloud managed service for InterSystems IRIS Cloud SQL customers, Cloud IntegratedML extends the capabilities of Cloud SQL to enable SQL developers to quickly build, tune, and execute machine learning models with just a few SQL-like commands, without moving or copying data to a different environment. A significant advantage of Cloud IntegratedML is the elimination of the need to transfer or replicate data to an external platform to build ML models, or to move ML models to a different environment for execution. Cloud IntegratedML delivers the following benefits for SQL developers: Automation of machine learning processes and resource-intensive tasks such as feature engineering, model development, and fine-tuning Seamless integration of models developed and trained with Cloud IntegratedML within Cloud SQL, facilitating real-time predictive insights and prescriptive actions in response to events and transactions This comprehensive suite of smart data services establishes the InterSystems Cloud portfolio of smart data services as an optimal choice for SQL developers seeking a robust, high-performance database solution tailored to their needs. The new Cloud SQL and Cloud IntegratedML services are available through InterSystems Developer Hub. About InterSystems Established in 1978, InterSystems is the leading provider of next-generation solutions for enterprise digital transformations in the healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and supply chain sectors. Its cloud-first data platforms solve interoperability, speed, and scalability problems for large organizations around the globe. InterSystems is committed to excellence through its award-winning, 24×7 support for customers and partners in more than 80 countries. Privately held and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, InterSystems has 38 offices in 28 countries worldwide. For more information, please visit InterSystems.com.

Read More

Data Architecture

SingleStore Announces Real-time Data Platform to Further Accelerate AI, Analytics and Application Development

SingleStore | January 25, 2024

SingleStore, the database that allows you to transact, analyze and contextualize data, today announced powerful new capabilities — making it the industry’s only real-time data platform. With its latest release, dubbed SingleStore Pro Max, the company announced ground-breaking features like indexed vector search, an on-demand compute service for GPUs/ CPUs and a new free shared tier, among several other innovative new products. Together, these capabilities shrink development cycles while providing the performance and scale that customers need for building applications. In an explosive generative AI landscape, companies are looking for a modern data platform that’s ready for enterprise AI use cases — one with best-available tooling to accelerate development, simultaneously allowing them to marry structured or semi-structured data residing in enterprise systems with unstructured data lying in data lakes. “We believe that a data platform should both create new revenue streams while also decreasing technological costs and complexity for customers. And this can only happen with simplicity at the core,” said Raj Verma, CEO, SingleStore. “This isn’t just a product update, it’s a quantum leap… SingleStore is offering truly transformative capabilities in a single platform for customers to build all kinds of real-time applications, AI or otherwise.” “At Adobe, we aim to change the world through digital experiences,” said Matt Newman, Principal Data Architect, Adobe. “SingleStore’s latest release is exciting as it pushes what is possible when it comes to database technology, real-time analytics and building modern applications that support AI workloads. We’re looking forward to these new features as more and more of our customers are seeking ways to take full advantage of generative Al capabilities.” Key new features launched include: Indexed vector search. SingleStore has announced support for vector search using Approximate Nearest Neighbor (ANN) vector indexing algorithms, leading to 800-1,000x faster vector search performance than precise methods (KNN). With both full-text and indexed vector search capabilities, SingleStore offers developers true hybrid search that takes advantage of the full power of SQL for queries, joins, filters and aggregations. These capabilities firmly place SingleStore above vector-only databases that require niche query languages and are not designed to meet enterprise security and resiliency needs. Free shared tier. SingleStore has announced a new cloud-based Free Shared Tier that’s designed for startups and developers to quickly bring their ideas to life — without the need to commit to a paid plan. On-demand compute service for GPUs and CPUs. SingleStore announces a compute service that works alongside SingleStore’s native Notebooks to let developers spin up GPUs and CPUs to run database-adjacent workloads including data preparation, ETL, third-party native application frameworks, etc. This capability brings compute to algorithms, rather than the other way around, enabling developers to build highly performant AI applications safely and securely using SingleStore — without unnecessary data movement. New CDC capabilities for data ingest and egress. To ease the burden and costs of moving data in and out of SingleStore, SingleStore is adding native capabilities for real-time Change Data Capture (CDC) in for MongoDB®, MySQL and ingestion from Apache Iceberg without requiring other third party CDC tools. SingleStore will also support CDC out capabilities that ease migrations and enable the use of SingleStore as a source for other applications and databases like data warehouses and lakehouses. SingleStore Kai™. Now generally available, and ready for both analytical and transactional processing for apps originally built on MongoDB. Announced in public preview in early 2023, SingleStore Kai is an API to deliver over 100x faster analytics on MongoDB® with no query changes or data transformations required. Today, SingleStore Kai supports BSON data format natively, has improved transactional performance, increased performance for arrays and offers industry-leading compatibility with MongoDB query language. Projections: To further advance as the world’s fastest HTAP database, SingleStore has added Projections. Projections allow developers to greatly speed up range filters and group by operations by introducing secondary sort and shard keys. Query performance improvements range from 2-3x or more, depending on the size of the table. With this latest release, SingleStore becomes the industry’s first and only real-time data platform designed for all applications, analytics and AI. SingleStore supports high-throughput ingest performance, ACID transactions and low-latency analytics; and structured, semi-structured (JSON, BSON, text) and unstructured data (vector embeddings of audio, video, images, PDFs, etc.). Finally, SingleStore’s data platform is designed not just with developers in mind, but also ML engineers, data engineers and data scientists. “Our new features and capabilities advance SingleStore’s mission of offering a real-time data platform for the next wave of gen AI and data applications,” said Nadeem Asghar, SVP, Product Management + Strategy at SingleStore. “New features, including vector search, Projections, Apache Iceberg, Scheduled Notebooks, autoscaling, GPU compute services, SingleStore Kai™, and the Free Shared Tier allow startups — as well as global enterprises — to quickly build and scale enterprise-grade real-time AI applications. We make data integration with third-party databases easy with both CDC in and CDC out support.” "Although generative AI, LLM, and vector search capabilities are early stage, they promise to deliver a richer data experience with translytical architecture," states the 2023 report, “Translytical Architecture 2.0 Evolves To Support Distributed, Multimodel, And AI Capabilities,” authored by Noel Yuhanna, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. "Generative AI and LLM can help democratize data through natural language query (NLQ), offering a ChatGPT-like interface. Also, vector storage and index can be leveraged to perform similarity searches to support data intelligence." SingleStore has been on a fast track leading innovation around generative AI. The company’s product evolution has been accompanied by high-momentum growth in customers and surpassing $100M in ARR late last year. SingleStore also recently ranked #2 in the emerging category of vector databases, and was recognized by TrustRadius as a top vector database in 2023. Finally, SingleStore was a winner of InfoWorld’s Technology of the year in the database category. To learn more about SingleStore visit here. About SingleStore SingleStore empowers the world’s leading organizations to build and scale modern applications using the only database that allows you to transact, analyze and contextualize data in real time. With streaming data ingestion, support for both transactions and analytics, horizontal scalability and hybrid vector search capabilities, SingleStore helps deliver 10-100x better performance at 1/3 the costs compared to legacy architectures. Hundreds of customers worldwide — including Fortune 500 companies and global data leaders — use SingleStore to power real-time applications and analytics. Learn more at singlestore.com. Follow us @SingleStoreDB on Twitter or visit www.singlestore.com.

Read More

Big Data Management

The Modern Data Company Recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Integration

The Modern Data Company | January 23, 2024

The Modern Data Company, recognized for its expertise in developing and managing advanced data products, is delighted to announce its distinction as an honorable mention in Gartner's 'Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools,' powered by our leading product, DataOS. “This accolade underscores our commitment to productizing data and revolutionizing data management technologies. Our focus extends beyond traditional data management, guiding companies on their journey to effectively utilize data, realize tangible ROI on their data investments, and harness advanced technologies such as AI, ML, and Large Language Models (LLMs). This recognition is a testament to Modern Data’s alignment with the latest industry trends and our dedication to setting new standards in data integration and utilization.” – Srujan Akula, CEO of The Modern Data Company The inclusion in the Gartner report highlights The Modern Data Company's pivotal role in shaping the future of data integration. Our innovative approach, embodied in DataOS, enables businesses to navigate the complexities of data management, transforming data into a strategic asset. By simplifying data access and integration, we empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their data, driving insights and innovation without disruption. "Modern Data's recognition as an Honorable Mention in the Gartner MQ for Data Integration is a testament to the transformative impact their solutions have on businesses like ours. DataOS has been pivotal in allowing us to integrate multiple data sources, enabling our teams to have access to the data needed to make data driven decisions." – Emma Spight, SVP Technology, MIND 24-7 The Modern Data Company simplifies how organizations manage, access, and interact with data using its DataOS (data operating system) that unifies data silos, at scale. It provides ontology support, graph modeling, and a virtual data tier (e.g. a customer 360 model). From a technical point of view, it closes the gap from conceptual to physical data model. Users can define conceptually what they want and its software traverses and integrates data. DataOS provides a structured, repeatable approach to data integration that enhances agility and ensures high-quality outputs. This shift from traditional pipeline management to data products allows for more efficient data operations, as each 'product' is designed with a specific purpose and standardized interfaces, ensuring consistency across different uses and applications. With DataOS, businesses can expect a transformative impact on their data strategies, marked by increased efficiency and a robust framework for handling complex data ecosystems, allowing for more and faster iterations of conceptual models. About The Modern Data Company The Modern Data Company, with its flagship product DataOS, revolutionizes the creation of data products. DataOS® is engineered to build and manage comprehensive data products to foster data mesh adoption, propelling organizations towards a data-driven future. DataOS directly addresses key AI/ML and LLM challenges: ensuring quality data, scaling computational resources, and integrating seamlessly into business processes. In our commitment to provide open systems, we have created an open data developer platform specification that is gaining wide industry support.

Read More

Spotlight

Events

Resources

resource image

Global Telecommunications study: navigating the road to 2020

Whitepaper

resource image

Big data or big judgment?

Video

resource image

Data Visualization

Ultimate Checklist for Mastering Aesthetics in Data Visualization

Article

Events