Oracle Academy Tech Chat

In this episode host Oracle Academy Program Manager Benelux & DACH Rik Bleeker speaks with Oracle expert Thomas Minne on the crucial intersection of Artificial Intelligence and data security, explaining why the Oracle Database is foundational to both. Drawing on his 15 years as a DBA and current role in Oracle’s EMEA CTO office, Thomas shares practical strategies for implementing AI responsibly without compromising sensitive information. Listeners will learn how features like Real Application Security and Label Security safeguard data, why AI vectors require the same protection as raw data, and hear real-world stories from industries like finance and healthcare. Thomas also discusses how AI can both enhance and threaten security, and offers career advice to students keen on mastering IT fundamentals and safely experimenting with Oracle LiveLabs. Whether you’re a student, educator, or just curious about AI security, this episode is packed with insights to help you innovate confidently and securely.

AI is driving a remarkable transformation throughout the industry, delivering unprecedented productivity gains and enabling rapid insights from vast amounts of data. In the second of a two-episode season premiere, Tirthankar Lahiri, SVP of Mission-Critical Data and AI Engines, discusses how Oracle AI Vector and embedded machine learning search are harnessing the power of AI to unlock value from enterprise data. AI is triggering an incredible transformation across the industry, enabling breakthrough improvements in productivity and rapid insights across massive volumes of data. However, in order to fully harness the power of AI, it is necessary to enable AI processing where the data resides. Oracle AI vector and built-in-machine learning search bring the power of AI to enterprise data, and allow developers to build sophisticated RAG and Agentic frameworks that leverage the full power of the converged database architecture of Oracle Database — including its class-leading scalability, fault-tolerance, and enterprise-grade security. Furthermore, Oracle database provides several mechanisms to make data "AI-ready" by enabling declarative data intent for AI. In this session, we will describe these techniques, and more, to explain how to truly build an AI for data solution in this rapidly changing AI landscape!

AI is driving a remarkable transformation throughout the industry, delivering unprecedented productivity gains and enabling rapid insights from vast amounts of data. In this two-episode season premiere, Tirthankar Lahiri, SVP of Mission-Critical Data and AI Engines, discusses how Oracle AI Vector and embedded machine learning search are harnessing the power of AI to unlock value from enterprise data, and allow developers to build sophisticated RAG and Agentic frameworks that leverage the full power of the converged database architecture of Oracle Database — including its class-leading scalability, fault-tolerance, and enterprise-grade security. Furthermore, Oracle database provides several mechanisms to make data "AI-ready" by enabling declarative data intent for AI. In this session, we will describe these techniques, and more, to explain how to truly build an AI for data solution in this rapidly changing AI landscape! ------------------------------------ Episode Transcript: 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:34:07 Unknown Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy prepares the next generation's workforce. 00:00:34:09 - 00:01:03:23 Unknown I'm your host, Tara Pierce. This is the first of two episodes on AI for data when data meets intelligence. Our guest speaker is to thank Carly Harris, senior vice president for mission critical data and AI engines at Oracle. Here's responsible for the data engine for Oracle database, including areas like AI, vector search, indexing and data compression. He also manages the Oracle Times ten in memory and the Oracle NoSQL database product teams to thank her. 00:01:03:23 - 00:01:33:13 Unknown Has 30 years of experience in the database industry and has worked on a variety of areas such as performance, scalability, manageability, caching, in-memory architectures and developer focused functionality. He has 71 issued and several pending patents. A bachelor's in computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology and a master's in electrical engineering from Stanford University. In the first episode to thank our talks about how data makes AI intelligent and how enterprises are using AI to get greater value from their data. 00:01:33:15 - 00:01:59:19 Unknown Over to you to thank her. Hi. Hey, guys. Thank you very much for joining. It's a great pleasure to be presenting AI for data. This is an exciting time in technology. AI is ubiquitous. AI changes everything. And I actually makes data intelligent. Let's talk about that today. So you know Oracle is working on AI. As many of you know, at many levels in the enterprise stack. 00:01:59:21 - 00:02:31:22 Unknown We have AI initiatives for applications, AI initiatives for services. I for data. And we're building a lot of AI infrastructure, as you seen from the news. Now I'm going to focus on AI for data. That's the focus of my presentation today. How we bring AI, the power of AI and unleash it on enterprise data. So Oracle's goal is to make AI for data extremely simple for basically everything. 00:02:32:00 - 00:02:54:08 Unknown So no matter what kind of end user you are, whether you're an expert, an AI, or a developer, or a DBA random list, every single persona should be able to leverage AI for data. We want to make it possible for all applications to leverage AI for data and benefit all workloads with the AI for data. So this is the goal that we have for AI for data. 00:02:54:08 - 00:03:25:05 Unknown Now, there's again basically two classic kinds of AI in the classical sense. So let's quickly talk about one before I get to what's new. So the traditional AI, was basically called algorithmic AI. Algorithmic here is based on machine learning models, typically non neural net designed to do predictions classifications, forecasting etc. and for data science people, you know that there's many different machine learning algorithms. 00:03:25:07 - 00:03:44:06 Unknown And these are all now available in Oracle database. So if you want you can use one of these models. This is the ever evolving list. You can use one of these models to load to first of all to train, you know, a sorry, you could use one of these algorithms. Excuse me. I keep that in the trunk. 00:03:44:08 - 00:04:05:22 Unknown These are algorithms. You can use one of these to train models and then to run inferencing using these models. So you imagine you can take, you know, linear linear regression. The algorithm used that to train a model and then applied that to data in real time to basically do predictions. So that's what in database machine learning lets you do. 00:04:06:00 - 00:04:30:18 Unknown And we've had this, capability for a while now. So what is new is something called I vector search, which is the primary focus of a presentation today. And this is newer, you know, and if this is beyond classical machine learning. So basically yeah vector search the new technology that enables searching for data by semantics rather than values. 00:04:30:20 - 00:04:54:11 Unknown The why why is this important? Because if you look at what databases traditionally do, for those of you who've been in the database field or have studied databases, databases essentially do what we call value based searches, where given a value, they can search by that value, like for instance, finding the revenue by each product. That's a very typical search you run inside of a database. 00:04:54:13 - 00:05:22:10 Unknown And they've excelled at this through various, you know, techniques like query optimization, SQL document processing, etc.. However, there is an ever increasing volume of unstructured data which you really can't search by value, but they have to be searched by semantics or meaning, like, you know, photos or images or description. Long complex textual descriptions. There's no real value that you can search those with. 00:05:22:10 - 00:05:52:08 Unknown Effectively, you need to search them essentially by their semantic content, not by the value content. For instance, finding products that match a particular photo or match a description that's not really something a database could do very well in the past. And this is a very important, an ever growing use case, because, you know, businesses need to do this today on a routine basis, forgetting about AI just in general to keep the business running in a healthy fashion. 00:05:52:10 - 00:06:25:14 Unknown There's a lot of examples of use cases where a business needs a search its data by, sort of the semantics. For instance, if you know, you have parts going into the sub line for manufacturing, the photo, the part should, quickly tell you whether that part might be defective, when customers log in to e-commerce sites, then when you browse products, so you try to check out a certain product, there is a desire from the e-commerce site to see what else they could then recommend to you in real time. 00:06:25:16 - 00:06:43:19 Unknown These are all examples. Another one is, of course, biometrics. You know, I'm coming in to the airport. I need to, you know, I go through facial recognition. They want to make sure that I'm the person I said I am when I, you know, when I submitted my visa application. So all of these cases require semantic search, not value based search. 00:06:43:21 - 00:07:11:12 Unknown And, vector searches. Exactly. That enable searching data based semantics. That's precisely what it does. And it does that using a construct primitive known as a vector, which is very simple actually. You know, if you think about this, the beauty of this is the basic concept is very easy, very simple. A vector is simply a long string of numbers that capture the semantics of much more complex data. 00:07:11:12 - 00:07:36:14 Unknown And they're produced by something I call black magic deep learning, machine learning models that take this, you know, unstructured set of data on the left, apply these complex algorithms and machine learning algorithms to that data and then outcomes a vector. It's actually incredible that this this actually works, that you can take something as sophisticated as a Picasso painting and convert that into a string of numbers. 00:07:36:14 - 00:07:59:16 Unknown That represents that painting. That's basically what a vector does. It's a string of numbers encoding the semantics. And once you do that, well, how do you then measure for similarity? The way you do that is by measuring the mathematical distance between the vectors. Now for those of you who've of course all of you are familiar with the vector concept, I'm sure from mathematics and physics. 00:07:59:18 - 00:08:22:09 Unknown Basically, vectors are points in multidimensional space, and there's many different ways to measure distance between them. You know, a simple example, a simple distance function is what we call Euclidean squared. We just take the square of the difference, the sum of the differences of each coordinate. That's a that's one distance for a function. However, there's many formula for distance. 00:08:22:11 - 00:08:45:07 Unknown And each machine learning model and each data scientist prefers a different one. Let's talk about how vectors get used in the real world. Now, if you think about, a very simple business example, I know that most of you not not, you know, business people, but most of you use products and sometimes, you know, products go wrong and you have this file, you know, ask for help from customer support. 00:08:45:08 - 00:09:10:11 Unknown Support incidents are very complex, documents, very complex entities. They involve a lot of different attributes. And typically looking for similarity for support incidents. Is this tricky? So a very simple exam

In this episode host Tyra Peirce chats with Rolando Carrasco, an Oracle ACE Director based in Latin America. Rolando and Tyra speak about Multi-tenant cloud. What it is, what it isn't, and when it should be used. --------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:34:01  Unknown  Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students with in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy prepares the next generation's workforce.    00:00:34:03 - 00:01:02:16  Unknown  I'm your host, Tyra Peirce. Today I'm joined by our Rolando Carrasco. Rolando is an Oracle Ace director based in Latin America. He has been in the IT industry for the past 25 years, working for companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. Then in 2010, he started his own consulting firm where he is currently the CTO. His work has been focused on distributed systems, working with several integration platforms, API management tools and the cloud.    00:01:02:18 - 00:01:29:06  Unknown  He is a constant speaker at both local and global development conferences. Welcome, Rolando. Oh thank you Tyra. So to start off, can you give me a bit about your background and your current job role? Yes. Thank you Tyra. Now I'm currently the CTO for a Mexican consulting firm here in Mexico. The name is CES, and I've had this role for the past 15 to 16 years now.    00:01:29:08 - 00:02:07:13  Unknown  And as you already mentioned, my experience is focused on distributed systems. And probably, I will say, the evolution of those type of needs in terms of integration in the cloud now. And I will say that I have a mixed profile in terms of, development, if you will, and also experience on sales and pre-sales and architecture, or so I will say that I have that type of hybrid more a rosary and my experience is being focused mostly and in the Latin American region, from Mexico to Brazil.    00:02:07:15 - 00:02:32:21  Unknown  Today our focus is on, multi-tenancy and cloud computing. Can you tell me what a multi-tenancy is and cloud computing and how does it differ from single tenancy? I can say that multi-tenancy is the ability to have different organizations working separately, and that's the key. But we'll be using the same infrastructure okay. Even though they share this infrastructure.    00:02:32:23 - 00:02:57:07  Unknown  The main thing, as I said, we already mentioned is that those different organizations are isolated. They can see each other, they can see their data. And I can say that normally service providers work in this fashion. They offer their services to several gateway stations or customers. And from the infrastructure standpoint, they share the infrastructure now along all those organizations.    00:02:57:09 - 00:03:25:08  Unknown  And the difference, the difference between multi-tenancy and the single tenancy is that which single tenant, every organization use its own infrastructure. I mean, there is nothing to share between them or among them, but you need to deliver on a specific infrastructure for every single organization. So which follows on to my next question. Can you share a real world example of multi-tenant cloud implementations?    00:03:25:10 - 00:04:03:19  Unknown  Yes, absolutely. I will say that the software as a service market and the software as a service, providers and application owns most of them. And I can say that both big companies such as Oracle and small companies or even startups, they use these type of model offering these, those type of services. For example, an email application and the one that we normally use, Outlook or Gmail or any of that type of email application is a clear example of then we all have an account.    00:04:03:21 - 00:04:26:22  Unknown  The infrastructure is the same. We don't care as a user, we just use the service as its own, as it's been, offered to, to us. So, the users are not aware of that. And I will say that probably the users are not even interested in if it is a multi-tenancy or not, but all I what I was trying to I was trying sorry to explain.    00:04:27:00 - 00:04:51:19  Unknown  Is that mostly those type of SaaS applications use this model. For example, maybe you or the audience are aware of applications such as Monday.com or Bitly. The shortener, URL application, or any other type of application that you normally use that you just use and you just subscribe to it. It is so very clear example of behind the scenes is working in a multi-tenancy fashion.    00:04:51:21 - 00:05:15:22  Unknown  That actually makes sense. The Bitly one makes sense to me because I've used it before. And same with like my email. My email. Programs. I understand how that would work. Like, you access it one way, but you might be touching multiple clouds. So that's that's actually really, really fascinating for me. So on to my next question. Why do organizations choose a multi-tenant architecture over a single tenant one?    00:05:16:00 - 00:05:45:22  Unknown  I will answer that in two ways. And the first one is for service providers. These multi-tenancy model may imply the reduction of several cost and operations because instead of provisioning dedicated infrastructure and all the consequences that it that it has, they use just one single, infrastructure and that single infrastructure is the one that they operate. They your grade and then they maintain.    00:05:46:00 - 00:06:13:17  Unknown  But at the same time they isolate the organizations as as we mentioned in, in the past questions or in the previous questions. And the second thing is for organizations who create their own software, I mean, that they are looking to create a solution. They are building, an application they will like to or free to many customers, and they need to deliver it in, in such a way that they need to reduce their own cost.    00:06:13:19 - 00:06:43:18  Unknown  Then probably they are going to choose these type of models because it is going to be not that expensive. And for example, in terms of Oracle technology, a Oracle's database is a very clear example of the unorganized organization, sorry, an organization that is looking to create an application which uses a database. But it happens that these database needs to be separated, be separated because the departments needs to be isolated.    00:06:43:18 - 00:07:10:23  Unknown  Just to give an example, this type of organization can leverage from the Oracle database technology. And in the specific the database multi-tenant option one single database engine, but multiple databases running on that very same engine. So I would say that those two things are the ones that are going to make an organization to use this multi-tenancy model that is that also makes a lot of sense to me.    00:07:10:23 - 00:07:45:09  Unknown  Like if you need to separate your databases, you want to separate your data, you want to make sure that it's controlled and then only accessible by a certain group of people. That also makes sense to me as well. Which leads to the next question how does multi-tenancy impact database management in cloud applications? I will say that it reduces the complexity of managing different databases with a whole set of infrastructure, because if you think about it and you have separate databases, then you need probably different persons to manage those different layers.    00:07:45:11 - 00:08:10:14  Unknown  So in the Oracle database multi-tenancy model or in a database dependency model, it is just one single infrastructure. So you reduce the number of persons or the team that is managing the infrastructure. The second thing is the streamline is streamlining the database provisioning and the provisioning, because you just need to take care about let me say it in this way just as database.    00:08:10:14 - 00:08:38:22  Unknown  So for it that's that's the there's the thing that you need to manage and you need to deploy or, or provision or the provision instead of the whole infrastructure. The third thing is to consolidate the database management. You are consolidating in a single group of persons and sometimes it is just one single DBA. You leave me managing different databases with, you know, very same infrastructure or the very same infrastructure.    00:08:39:00 - 00:09:07:01  Unknown  You can also consolidate database monitoring. So you have a single glass of pane if you will, where you can check the different databases that you are running in this multi tenancy model, instead of having separated monitoring tools or monitoring applications, working on top of these different databases, you have one single glass of paint on modeling of new organization.    00:09:07:01 - 00:09:29:05  Unknown  You will be easier because you already have the infrastructure. You just need to provision the database for this new department or organization and probably already mentioned it, but I think is is okay to repeat it to reduce the number of DBA is managing all that infrastructure. I like that, I like that it's all about streamlining and making sure that they you don't need as many resources.    00:09:29:06 - 00:09:48:01  Unknown  Managing certain types of things like the DBA is can go out and expand into doing different types of work. And it's that's a little bit more interesting. Or you have like a, a person that is just an expert in one area, which I think  is kind of helpless. You can spread your resources out and make them a little bit more nimble and flexible.    00:09:48:01 - 00:10:21:21  Unknown  So which leads to my next question. What are the key performance challenges and a multi-tenant system, and how are they addressed in. This is one of the most relevant questions, and I

In this episode host Tyra Peirce speaks with Oracle development data center manager Ryan Lucas. Ryan tells Tyra about the key components of a data center, and what it takes to run a data center. --------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:  00:00:00:00 - 00:00:34:09  Unknown  Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps our next generation's workforce.    00:00:34:11 - 00:00:58:17  Unknown  I'm your host, Tara Crockett Pierce. In this episode, I speak with Oracle Data Center manager Ryan Lucas. Ryan breaks down the basics of data centers what they are, how they work, and why they're essential for empowering your favorite streaming services to securing business critical data. So far to securing business critical data. Data centers are the unseen force behind modern technology.    00:00:58:17 - 00:01:27:03  Unknown  Welcome, Ryan. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So go ahead and start off. Ryan, can you give me a little bit about your background and your role at Oracle? Yeah. So I first started working as a system administrator, for the Java group at Sun Microsystems back in 2002. My responsibilities included deploying and maintainingsystems, like Solaris, Linux, and even windows servers.    00:01:27:05 - 00:02:03:20  Unknown  And I would also troubleshoot network, software and hardware issues. Eventually my responsibilities included backing up important files like source code for the Java Development Kit or otherwise known as JDK. I've been at Oracle for 16 years. Yeah. So in my current role, I help manage labs that, are essentially on-premise data centers. They may not be as large as something you would see like an on OCI site.    00:02:03:22 - 00:02:33:11  Unknown  But the labs that I support, they when you're inside them, they look like data centers. And we, they basically are used to to test Oracle engineered systems. So my group we help provide local support for the engineers of Oracle Engineered Systems. We have systems that have been released to the public. And we have systems that have not been released to the public.    00:02:33:13 - 00:03:01:03  Unknown  And so what we  are responsible for, you know, deploying, maintaining, keeping these servers running and helping create testing environments so that engineers can make sure that the engineered, that their hardware works as advertised. And then, sometimes even after hardware has been released, if a customer has some kind of concern, we may have to recreate their environment in our lab.    00:03:01:09 - 00:03:21:06  Unknown  Well, I call it lab, but it's a data center. And that way, we can try to discover if the customer's having a lot of times the customers having an issue because it's a customer error. So, you know, maybe the customer is trying to use our hardware in ways that we hadn't, you know, thought about or wasn't really designed for.    00:03:21:08 - 00:03:47:03  Unknown  But, yeah, eventually there will be some issues that we have to work through. And, and so it's it's very dynamic. So a typically like a, like an OCI production data center, you know, that is very structured. You know, all the cables are pristine a specific length. You know they push they push a new rack of servers into a gridlock station.    00:03:47:05 - 00:04:11:16  Unknown  It's there for the life of the of the rack. You may they have a field engineer come in and service some hardware, but then after it's decommissioned, they roll it out and they put in a new server. But in my in my group, we are constantly moving things around to recreate environments. It's very dynamic, very different. But it also makes it the challenge makes it very fun as well.    00:04:11:18 - 00:04:45:09  Unknown  So Ryan, kind of with that really cool introduction and background, what is a data center and what are its core components? Gotcha. Okay. So I'm going to read a formalized explanation. Just so I don't ramble off or get too technical. And then I'm going to talk about some things in my own words. So a data center is a physical facility to house a group of networked computers, servers for the remote storage, processing and distribution of data.    00:04:45:11 - 00:05:07:23  Unknown  A data center provides security, physical space, power, and cooling for racks of servers and network equipment. Those are the core components. But let me let me just I think I was trying to imagine what it would be like for someone who's never been in a data center to try to grasp the magnitude of scale that is a data center.    00:05:08:01 - 00:05:35:09  Unknown  You know, like you're if you're at home and you have your home computer, maybe it has a gigabit Ethernet port, and maybe you connect to the internet with with one internet service provider and your speed, you know, depending on what you're paying, is your bandwidth isn't huge, right? It's so hard, I think. Had I not had the experience I have, it's can be very difficult to try to imagine what a data center is capable of.    00:05:35:11 - 00:05:56:18  Unknown  It's kind of like if I were, you know, I'm driving a car and trying to imagine what it's like to drive a Formula One car, but that's not even a good analogy because it's not even a formula One car. It's a fleet of Formula One cars in each of them. Each of my racks, we have switches that can process 100 gigabits per second, 100 gigabits per second.    00:05:56:20 - 00:06:32:23  Unknown  And between each of our data centers, each of our labs, we have switches that are can process 400 gigabits per second. There's switches out there that will do 800 gigabits per second. Then there's probably even switches beyond that that I'm, you know, not familiar with yet, but so it's really hard for someone who, when you talk about the scale of what is involved and what these data centers can do and how much planning and organization goes into building them and running them, it's it can be a little hard to comprehend, you know, but it makes it fun, right?    00:06:32:23 - 00:06:56:22  Unknown  I mean, that's one of the reasons why I love my job is because I get to to work with, work with, and touch hardware that is just sometimes blows my mind. I also think about Oracle probably has some of the most advanced data centers in the world, just based on what we do as well. So like this is like the Rolls Royce of like and the Maserati of data centers and what we do every day.    00:06:57:00 - 00:07:22:08  Unknown  Which leads me to my next question. What are the different types of data centers? Right. So I was thinking back to some of my early days when I was at CERN, and I can remember someone telling me that one of the early developers of MySQL or MySQL had a server under his kitchen table. I can't even imagine what I mean.    00:07:22:10 - 00:07:40:02  Unknown  It probably was I'd like a desktop PC or a workstation. It wouldn't have even been a server because that would have been too loud. But if you think about what what happens if your power goes out or if your internet service provider goes out, there goes, you know, so I, I don't know if that's true or not. I just remember somebody telling me about being blown away.    00:07:40:04 - 00:08:11:00  Unknown  But, so you there's some companies that have, on premise, you have an on premise data center. So that's like, if I want to do all the heavy lifting myself, you know, so I'm going to build the data center. I'm going to have a facilities group that is responsible for providing power and cooling. And then I'm also going to have my own teams, you know, like system administrators, network administrators to support all the hardware in that lab.    00:08:11:02 - 00:08:39:09  Unknown  And then, you know, you're also responsible for making sure you have, you know, connections to the theinternet backbone. There's there's a lot involved. So, so on premises, if some, you know, you're a company and you want to control, have that data center managed by you, then there's something called co-location or colo. And what a colo is.    00:08:39:09 - 00:09:08:16  Unknown  And then you have like a third party and they specialize in the planning and the building of the data center. They provide the cooling and, the power and you, the different companies, different corporations or different entities, they can rent space, like maybe you'll rent a floor or you'll rent a cage. And they're also responsible for the security.    00:09:08:18 - 00:09:36:06  Unknown  So I know at colo facilities, you know, they'll have retinal scanners, they'll have man traps. I've been to data centers where they have armed guards, where they have conference rooms that generate, like, white noise. So if you're in a conference room and you're trying to have a private conversation and somebody walks by, they can't overhear you, you know, now, not that anybody would be trying to listen in on your conversation.    00:09:36:06 - 00:10:06:04  Unknown  But if you know, if you're with the NSA or something, you want to make sure that nobody can overhear sensitive information. So it can be very cloak and dagger. So yeah, that's that would be one concern. If you'reat a Colo facility and you're not managing the data center, you know, but having an on premise data center, then you have like a cloud data center, which is, third party that provides compute, storage and networking, resources as a service.    00:10:06:06 - 00:10:52:23  Unknown 

Do you want to be a data engineer? In this episode, host Alba Joven speaks with Oracle Autonomous Database specialist Javier de la Torre Medina about what it takes to become an AI data engineer. Episode Transcript: 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:34:15 Unknown Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy, tech chat where we discuss how Oracle Academy prepares the next generation workforce.   00:00:34:17 - 00:00:57:14 Unknown I’m your host, Alba Joven. And in this episode, I'm joined by Javier de la Torre Medina, an Autonomous database specialist at Oracle. Today, Javier and I will be talking about how to become an AI data engineer. Welcome Javier. Thank you very much Alba a pleasure to have you today here on this nice chat. Javier before we dive in   00:00:57:15 - 00:01:20:15 Unknown Can you tell us a little bit about what's your background and what's your role at Oracle? Sure. So I have it already at Oracle 13 years ago so when I when I joined and having working a lot of positions and all of the data related. So I'm working as a big data specialist, a NoSQL specialist, Oracle database specialist.   00:01:20:17 - 00:01:44:11 Unknown So always having, working to, to help customers to build data architectures and solution which has the best approach. So to help them to, get the best value of the data. So normally my day, I do workshops to show the technology and demos to show it live, architecture diagram. I also I do a lot of proof of concepts.   00:01:44:13 - 00:02:07:17 Unknown That's to, to help them to, to build the solution that their looking for. So at the end, I always been, data related, but now I have a special focus with, autonomous database, which is our, product right now in the, in the markets. I understand that you are an expert in, you know, autonomous database for those who may not be familiar what exactly it is and why is such a game changer?   00:02:07:19 - 00:02:35:15 Unknown They are markets perception that Oracle is difficult. And you need a lot of gears and expertise. In order to start using this technology. And this is our game changer because we provide the Oracle database as so some access, an ERP or a CRM. But for the technology point of view it’s access, because the idea of the goal of Oracle is you can start working directly with the data and forget about everything.   00:02:35:17 - 00:02:58:05 Unknown So Oracle automatically is in charge of putting the data is in charge and doing backups is in charge of doing all this kind of, of activities. And that's why I suddenly changer. Because so also one of the good thing is that there is a lot of configuration already done. So the idea is that you don't need to be an expert in Oracle in Uni in order to start using it.   00:02:58:07 - 00:03:18:07 Unknown Even if you left the university tomorrow, you can start using, create great applications, AI application that we'll talk later about it in a matter of minutes. And this is where the business see value because even in the, in the AI space. So we see that every day this a new something is changing or something is happening.   00:03:18:09 - 00:03:40:11 Unknown So to be up to date or to be able to adapt these new changes into your application or the business is very important. So that's why is the key difference from from there or a game changer for the autonomous database. Also, one of the key things is that, we're going to talk about this concept of data engineer.   00:03:40:13 - 00:04:00:16 Unknown So I think normally when we talk about the Oracle database, we are talking about database administrators. But this concept I think is one to disappear too. And data engineers. But the good things or if someone is a DBA and is listening to us is that the knowledge to do have is still is great because you need to work with the data you need to create.   00:04:00:18 - 00:04:23:09 Unknown Move the data you know the form of the data. So on this value you can use it is still as a data engineer there. But you can forget about all these tedious talks about patching, backups, upgrades or all these things that doesn’t provide value. And normally it's a stopper to to innovate on the DBAs or not, the data engineers can, benefit about all these new capabilities.   00:04:23:09 - 00:04:42:22 Unknown The autonomous database is going to provide. You have mentioned the role of AI data engineer quite a bit. Can you explain how Oracle has achieved this role? So before going into the AI engineer, let me explain. What is a data engineer? If someone is coming from a DBA or have seen Oracle has only a database point of view.   00:04:43:00 - 00:05:03:03 Unknown So I was mentioning. So one of the goal of the Oracle with the autonomous database is to focus only on the data, which is really important. But also there is a concept that we call in the autonomous database is the convert data model. So that means that we can work with any datatype. We can work with Json, we can work with data spatial.   00:05:03:09 - 00:05:26:23 Unknown We can work with a relational. We can work with graph data. It doesn't matter. This is very important because many companies want to be a data driven company but become they become data movement company. So they move data from one product to another product. And then when the business came, I need a report by one yesterday I need to buy yesterday.   00:05:26:23 - 00:05:52:01 Unknown No, there was too late. No. And this is one of the benefits that Oracle has to to be able to avoid to move data. Unless you don't need it. But also we have, great graphical interface which is called Data Studio. So I was mentioning you before that even if you left the university, today, tomorrow you can start using the autonomous database and you can become a data engineer.   00:05:52:03 - 00:06:13:18 Unknown And this is because this suite of tools which are included for free, it is something very, very important with the autonomous database, allow us to go through the life cycle of the data engineer. So the lifecycle of a data engineer has three main stages, which is load data from a source of data transform the data will be data quality and reach it and so on.   00:06:14:00 - 00:06:36:16 Unknown And then to serve it as maybe we need to serve it to a BI person who has to, prepare a report for their business. Maybe you want to serve it with an internal application because we need it for HR, marketing or so on, or even including application for third parties. So this is really very important. And all these three stages are very important from a data engineer.   00:06:36:16 - 00:07:06:04 Unknown And you can achieve it very easily with a graphical interface which is called the the, the data studio. And what we say the I know with artificial intelligence. AI is transforming every industry. But what exactly is an AI data engineer. So have been talking about data engineer. So the AI engineer go a bit farther now, something that, I see, and I hear a lot is like a AI is not going to take your job, but someone who will use it.   00:07:06:04 - 00:07:28:18 Unknown Wait. So this is very, very, very important because this is going to boost productivity. But even if it boost productivity is very important to check what the AI is suggesting because it's not going to do all the job for for us. So this is very, very important. And also in the data studio, we have included, a lot of AI features that anybody can can use.   00:07:28:20 - 00:07:49:00 Unknown But something that I would like to highlight is that all the AI features that are included are open. So it means that I can work with any level in the market. You know that tomorrow, today, open AI is really cool, but tomorrow we have a three and then we have the IPsec and they're everywhere. Is, is is changing now.   00:07:49:02 - 00:08:10:01 Unknown So something which is very important is to say, okay, from a business point of view, I want to take this technology and use it as soon as possible. But I don't want to change all the processes that I have underneath. If you have to adapt or develop something every day, you will never get anything to production or anything useful no   00:08:10:03 - 00:08:26:17 Unknown And that's why in the database we are able to connect to any, and we are able to suggest or to work in order to improve this kind of pipelines or data load and all this kind of features that we like to highlight, you know, so this is very important.   00:08:26:19 - 00:08:50:17 Unknown I mean when we boost their productivity. But then the AI engineer go a bit farther because also on top of that we have the load transform on serve that I was mentioning before. The AI can do more things. One thing is to create synthetic data or fake data. Imagine that they have to create an application for an internal marketing department.   00:08:50:19 - 00:09:14:23 Unknown So I can use AI to generate the data model to generate the fake data. And the developer going to start working tomorrow directly. So this boost the productivity I don't have to worry too about, all these things are going to be a quickie. And also something that we can use in the autonomous database, which is very popular easily. We can work with that vector, database because the vector is a datatype is inside the autonomous database.   00:09:15:01 - 00:09:40:22 Unknown So, anybody is not familiar with the vector is that we provide is the information we provide to the NLM in order to provide, more, business related, answers. For example, we have PDFs, I have Excel. I have a lot of information, pictures that I want my NLM to help me in my business so I can do it directly inside of the autonomous database in a very easy, very easy way.   00:09:41:00 - 00:1

In this episode host Bekere Amassoma speaks with Annick Sakho, Director, Government Affairs Africa about today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape and how access to technology education is a crucial factor in driving economic growth, innovation, and job creation. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:35:11 Unknown Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Start, where we discuss how Oracle Academy prepares the next generation's workforce.   00:00:35:13 - 00:00:59:17 Unknown I'm your host, Bekere Amassoma. In this episode, I am joined by Annick Sakho who is Director of Government Affairs Africa in Oracle. So Annick to start off. Thank you for joining us. And can you share a bit about your journey into technology, how you got into Oracle and your current role as Director of Government Affairs for Africa?   00:00:59:22 - 00:01:24:01 Unknown A big hello to you, Bekere, and thank you for inviting me today. It's a real pleasure to be here with you to discuss Oracle Academy in this, podcast. Thank you for the opportunity. So I am currently the Oracle Government affairs in charge of Africa, and I am based out of Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire, in the Oracle Cote d'Ivoire office.   00:01:24:03 - 00:02:05:17 Unknown So, you asking me about how I got into Oracle? Well, I started my career as a research and development engineer in a telecommunication company in Switzerland because I hold a telecommunication engineering degree. And later on, I joined Cote d’lvoire and joined IBM at the time when companies were starting to implement remote access to their mainframes and other computers. So, IT companies were actually in need of people who understood telecommunication to configure all these controllers and protocol, etcetera, to establish, stable, secure, remote connection.   00:02:05:19 - 00:02:42:20 Unknown And this is how I got into technology, because remember at those time, originally remote access was, about dialing up on the phone and having a modem to allow employees to connect to an office, network of telephone networks. And, since I joined technology using my telco skills, I stayed there, and my journey started a very fulfilling one, I would say, where I held, initially a pre-sales role before transitioning into a sales role.   00:02:42:22 - 00:03:11:21 Unknown I've been with Oracle almost 20 years now, and, New Year has been the same as the previous one because I was privileged to work with customers in different industries located in various regions across Africa, selling innovative solutions to support their business. And the most enriching part was the opportunity to work in a multicultural environment. To progress to a managerial role and then to lead virtual tips.   00:03:11:22 - 00:03:37:04 Unknown So when I was leading the technology cloud sales team across sub-Saharan Africa a few years ago, I realized that a lot of governments were not familiar with cloud technologies, not even with Oracle solution portfolio. However, we knew that governments have a crucial role in supporting the regulatory environment and the adoption of these technologies in the local digital economy.   00:03:37:06 - 00:04:17:00 Unknown And this is one this is, the reason why when the director, Government Affairs Africa position opened, I applied. This is what led me to, being today the government office director for Africa. In this capacity, I lead and coordinate Oracle's engagement with the African government officials and the various stakeholders like the NGO, the trade union, the industry associations, etc. and working closely, on the other hand, with Oracle Senior Management in Africa and Oracle Global Business Units.   00:04:17:02 - 00:04:51:13 Unknown And part of my responsibilities include educating government officials about our company, about our industry and more generally, about technology. Wow Annick that's quite interesting and thank you for sharing. Now how would you describe the current state of the digital divide in Africa's education sector? Interesting question. Africa's digital transformation journey is marked by significant challenges that require, strategic intervention to overcome.   00:04:51:15 - 00:05:29:03 Unknown And one of the critical areas that needs attention to ensure that the continent can fully leverage digital opportunity. Revolves around digital skills. With 70% of Africa's population under 30. There is a pressing need to reform education systems and to align with our industry needs. And, traditional education, from what I see it often does not equip young people with a skills demanding by the tech industry because we have not been able to, revovle in terms of curriculum.   00:05:29:05 - 00:06:02:19 Unknown And this leads to a mismatch between education and employment opportunities. So the digital divide in Africa's education sector remains a significant challenge, particularly at the university and high school levels, because this is a last stage before going into the workforce and before applying for jobs. While, digital transformation is accelerating globally. Many African students still face barriers to accessing quality tech education for various reason.   00:06:02:21 - 00:06:35:23 Unknown Inadequate infrastructure, limited internet connectivity, lack of appropriate training, and the lack of access to quality tech education and relevant training program impede the development of digital competency among the students. And additionally, we can also see that we have disparities between urban and rural areas where limited access to technology into the spread of digital and computing skills and, remote reach.   00:06:35:23 - 00:07:08:01 Unknown This gap limits the ability of African student to compete in an increasingly technology driven job market. The World Economic Forum had just released their report on jobs, The Future of Jobs 2025, and it really showed that the jobs will transform, and we need to be equipped to have a chance to thrive in this new environment. Companies today, they are not hiring young people based on the traditional degrees alone.   00:07:08:03 - 00:07:48:04 Unknown They hire them based on skills. This means that, you know, so should certification programs. The, certificate that they can earn will demonstrate how skilled they are. And they have now more values than having a bachelor's or a master's degrees in many cases. And knowing that, Africa has a young population, we need to have a reform of our education system to adequately equip young people with the skills needed for the digital age.   00:07:48:04 - 00:08:26:11 Unknown And this is, concern more and more, countries, being conscious about and are working towards changing things. Well, I will say that we need to democratize education and the access to digital education. And for that, we need to focus now on upskilling or reskilling our youth to bridge the digital skills gap, ensuring that our young population is prepared to participate in and to drive the digital economy.   00:08:26:13 - 00:08:56:00 Unknown Addressing this skill gap is essential for the continent's digital future. So as a conclusion, I would say that, we need to foster digital literacy and practical tech skills. Otherwise, the next generation of African professional will not be in a position to compete in a global environment, and they need to be empowered to drive economic growth and innovation across our continent.   00:08:56:06 - 00:09:38:18 Unknown This is very important. Thank you very much Annick. Well said. Now to the next question. How do you see Oracle Academy's overarching mission in Africa, and how does it align with global efforts in tech education? I had the opportunity to engage with Oracle Academy in, different African countries, and I could see the impact. Oracle Academy's mission in Africa is to democratize access to technology education by providing free, high quality computing resources, curricula and training both to the students and the educators.   00:09:38:20 - 00:10:18:10 Unknown Oracle Academy helps to bridge the digital divide because it helps equipping student and educator was essential digital skills, and by doing so, it aims to equip young Africans with the digital skills needed for the modern workforce, particularly in high demand fields such as software development, artificial intelligence, cloud computing. This mission aligns closely with global efforts in tech education, which focus on closing the digital skills gap, promoting Stem learning, and fostering innovation driven economy.   00:10:18:12 - 00:11:04:17 Unknown And when we talk about Stem learning, I would like to also stress the opportunity it gives to women and young female students to have access to technical, education, because I'm a big fan of promoting Stem for the young girls for them to, really get interest into this, subject. So, in Africa where, internet penetration and digital infrastructure are still developing, Oracle Academy plays a crucial role in bridging the digital divide that were mentioned earlier by collaborating with universities, high schools, government institutes.   00:11:04:19 - 00:11:34:18 Unknown It supports curriculum enhancement, teacher training and practical learning opportunities because we have we are giving access to students and teachers to a hub where they can find all the resources to be really educated and trained to the latest technology. And these ensure that Africa's youth is not left behind in the global digital economy. So this is a, very important role.   00:11:34:20 - 00:12:06:23 Unknown And I will say that Oracle's academy efforts in Africa are critical, a critical com

In this episode host Lorna Juma speaks with recent construction management graduates, University of Nairobi, Lewis Miringa and Joyce Ojamong about real-world applications of P6 in construction projects. Learn how Primavera P6 has shaped the careers of two recent Construction Management and explore the increasing role of tech in construction.     -----------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;09;02 - 00;00;36;01 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy prepares the next generation's workforce. 00;00;36;03 - 00;01;13;20 I am your host, Lorna Juma. In this episode, I am joined by Lily Smearing and Jasper Jamal Rees, recent construction management graduates from the University of Nairobi. Join us as we hear their stories. Learn about, how Primavera P6 has shaped their careers and explore the increasing role of tech in construction project management. Whether you're a student, educator or professional in the construction field, this episode will offer valuable insights into the practical impact of P6 on construction projects and career growth. 00;01;13;22 - 00;01;40;16 Welcome Luis and Joyce. Now, to start off. Can you give me a bit about your background and the respective courses you undertook? Joyce, I'll start with you. Thank you. Lana. I'm so grateful to be here. My name is just a general environmental graduate and construction management graduate from the University of Nairobi. But until recently, where I am currently practicing as a scientist. 00;01;40;19 - 00;02;05;11 Data. So, I basically monitor on project site activities. Thank you. Luis. Thank you, Lorna. My name is Luis meeting. I am a graduate from the University of Nairobi on pursuing construction management. Currently working on Junior Challenge development at city. We also are developing a lot of seating data. Thank you so much. And Leo is just, to have that conversation. 00;02;05;14 - 00;02;31;29 How did you first hear about the Oracle Academy program and its inclusion of Primavera P6? Thank you. My first introduction when I came to learn about Oracle Academy was through creation. This is a student body in full construction real estate student association at the University of Nairobi. Faculty in the Built Environment and at the Department of Real Estate Construction Management and quantity serving. 00;02;32;01 - 00;02;59;12 So, I will part of the students conceived and then time which is the regression body. And the part of the initiative we had wanted to do is have also invited people who can be relevant when they graduate out in the industry. And how do you do this? Is, well, one of the ways is equipping these students with skills that actually in the industry. 00;02;59;16 - 00;03;30;12 So, part of what we're using construction is, Scheduling software. Scheduling software. So, we did that bridge broken. Think the country director. We need what I've been doing, which was well-received. They invite us a meeting them we this class with these. So, when we got there, it was like, let's get into what happened. We came to realize that these are being part of. 00;03;30;14 - 00;04;06;05 And there's a lot of an academy that offers these courses on products that Oracle offers. So, we got there, learned about. The curriculum they do offer and part of it was to have the university, partner with Oracle and get us to have account. So, though I will share the content. We were able to initiate this partnership. The university was already done was giving an account a member account where lecturers are able to sign up students. 00;04;06;07 - 00;04;36;06 Now students get to their own instances, but accounts for these accounts so they are able to access these curriculums. In on the afternoon. So, through this, I was able to learn more about D6, pretty much about the project management curriculum. Good. Even, attempts to download the BC software as a student version. Practically use it. New scenarios I need, which is really amazing. 00;04;36;09 - 00;05;10;09 And that was my first experience. And we the analytics and, thank you so much for that story. So just moving on to you. What motivated you to enroll and learn about this specific tool? And that is Primavera P6. Thank you, Lana. So, my first experience with P6 is from the Python version. So just talked about, with organized our actual training by P6, we were made aware that this is a tool that is widely used in the industry. 00;05;10;12 - 00;05;33;01 So, that motivated me to learn more about putting my video pieces as well as the resources that you provided, that Oracle provided. You were able to get tutorials from the student home and it able also be gained a certificate after the training sessions. And, just having the available resources for you to go through was motivation enough. 00;05;33;02 - 00;05;57;07 And I'm so grateful for that opportunity. How has gaining, Primavera P6 skills given you a competitive edge during your job search? So, during my job, such, there was an opportunity of, site coordinator in a construction site, and I was called for an interview, and they were looking for someone with a vast, project management skills, in particular. 00;05;57;07 - 00;06;23;09 Skills. Link. And since Primavera P6 is a skills link tool. I got to be. I was asked more about it. And the skills that I had and the knowledge that I was able to explain the cost aspects, there's considering aspects, the resource management aspects and that, let me get the job opportunity. And now, Lois, moving over to you. 00;06;23;11 - 00;06;54;04 Can you share specific examples where these skills helped you stand out or secure an opportunity? See what I can mentioning. And it's really nice when somebody asks you something that you are really conversant about. So, when I was actually attending the interview, I was asked, to give a scenario on how you would allocate resources to an activity and how will you know you, and I'm not, resources already located. 00;06;54;09 - 00;07;21;20 This is the kind of questions where you, you actually see deadlines and, and answer them because, but back in school. Oh, we interacted in the P6 till about scheduling. And so, and you are really, really conversant about it. So, it's, it's, it's a question that we answer in confidence. You even give a practical scenario of how you will schedule unit, which is actually what I need. 00;07;21;22 - 00;07;46;15 And I know it pretty much. And I am employed and another scenario, after working there for some, some time, we were actually sent to an did it for a crash program, which is also a concept in P6 when you are really lagging behind in the in, in, in in the scheduling in in addition, you know, the credit, you have to come up with a crash program. 00;07;46;20 - 00;08;19;10 Are you interested in activities and catch up with the lost time. So, part of what we were tasked to do is come up with a crash program. And if, we were given timelines when given due process and asked to come up with a schedule of how you are going to complete these tasks, which was handing over units, but 48 of them in in a period of three months, something you interact with it, you do it. 00;08;19;12 - 00;08;51;22 Because you understand it, which is actually what I need. And, turned out to be successful. So, it is it is something that is applicable out here. As much as you learn, it is good. So, what I'm hearing is a lot of, importance of academia, industry collaboration, which, you know, gives you access to industry tools. And once you are conversant with them, you know, you get a lot of confidence, gives you a differentiating factor, even when you're applying for jobs, even when you're undertaking the interview. 00;08;51;25 - 00;09;20;04 Great. Thank you so much. Now, Joyce, now that you started working in the construction industry, how are you applying Primavera P6 skills in your daily task? You learned so much that, you find that in large construction projects you have multiple contractors, multiple contractors with different tasks that, they have we have to schedule them in a way that we don't lose time as we go along the projects. 00;09;20;06 - 00;09;45;23 So daily, we schedule activities. Primavera P6 provides a work on structure. So, you want to group your activities into smaller tasks and then to be able to schedule them appropriately, allocating enough time for all the contractors. The other thing is you can monitor progress as you go along. So, you monitor progress against what was planned. 00;09;45;25 - 00;10;13;01 And that way you're able to manage time along that project. You manage cost, you know, when you extend your time plans, it comes in extra extrapolate. So, management of the project items is made using the Primavera P6. And Lois, moving over to you. Can you share, specific projects where you've used, P6 to manage timelines, resources or budgets? 00;10;13;06 - 00;10;52;04 Okay. And as I've mentioned before, it was vital, fresh program. Vital was a project that was apparently pain changing and we had to put some good input, some efforts to be able to catch up with time. So about, P6 it's a software that involves a long-term planning, budgeting and even risk analysis when it comes to, the planning aspect itself and the scheduling you get to, you get to when your activities, what breakdown structure you sequence activities inside that. 00;10;52;08 - 00;11;15;20 Then in these activities you want to assign resources to them. Once you assign resources, you are able to track at any given specific time. Is the project actually running behind schedule? And if it is and running behind schedule, whic

In this episode host Lorna Juma speaks with Dr. Lawrence Nderu on Unpacking the Database-AI Connection and Why It Matters. If you’re an educator, student, or tech enthusiast curious about the backbone of artificial intelligence systems, this episode is your gateway to understanding the vital role of databases in artificial intelligence and machine learning.   -----------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;09;02 - 00;00;35;04 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy prepares the next generation's Laplace. 00;00;35;06 - 00;01;08;10 I'm your host, Lorna Juma. In this episode, I am joined by Doctor Laurence Darrow, a lecturer and research fellow in the Department of Computing at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Today, we're uncovering how databases, power artificial intelligence and machine learning, two of the most transformative forces in the tech world. If you're an educator, student, and tech enthusiast curious about the backbone of AI systems, this episode is your gateway to understanding the vital role of databases in AI and machine learning. 00;01;08;12 - 00;01;35;11 To start off, Doctor Lawrence, thank you so much for joining us. Can you give me a bit about your background and the classes you teach? Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I really think that this is a very important conversation and happy and, to work with you guys to promote the use of these solutions and these technologies for the purpose of making sure that, we have a generation that is well informed and ready for work. 00;01;35;13 - 00;02;06;07 So to start with, I am a lecturer and also the chairman, Department of Computing at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. I'm also the founder of Jacob Moffett, which is a digital innovation hub that is based at the University of Jomo Kenyatta in Gloucester. Work and culture. In technology. I currently I do teach units that relates to AI and machine learning and also applied machine learning. 00;02;06;10 - 00;02;34;01 I also do supervise the students at the level of BHB and Masters. While working on areas of AI and machine learning. And those are the areas that that that the working on. I also read research teams that are working on innovations and I Jacob, in terms of building solutions that are using AI as the basis for, solving some problems and also others that are using AI to improve the operations. 00;02;34;03 - 00;03;00;17 Thank you, doctor Larry Entwistle. Glad to have you join us as an expert to discuss this important topic. Now, could you break down the fundamental relationship between databases and AI? Why are robust databases critical for building effective AI models? Thank you. So the first thing is that the data is the food for AI. And we have had the same being said every now and then. 00;03;00;17 - 00;03;29;18 That data is the new oil. And I think that also means that we need these data to be data that is accessible in a way that is use that work. I mean, and efficient manner. So, it means that AI is being powered by data and whether this data is structured data or unstructured data. We need data to be know about is accessible and also accessible in an efficient manner. 00;03;29;20 - 00;04;01;18 So the connection really is the fact that traditionally when we dealt with the data, we were looking at it like say more or less data that was relational based databases. Now we know that data is found in many other formats. We have data, of course, in structured. We have data in semi-structured. We have data in unstructured formats. All these data needs to be stored in ways that it can be consumed, be consumed by AI, systems. 00;04;01;21 - 00;04;28;27 And that's where now the connection comes. Because the better the data, the better you are able to create models in the AI that are effective. And they are also able to answer very many questions that that one would want. So to answer that question is that the connection is clear, that we need, data to power AI systems, and we need systems that can be able to store these data in a way that that, that I can consume it in a better way. 00;04;28;27 - 00;04;54;06 And we have the pipeline. We need that pipeline that provides data and then feeds into the, AI models or AI systems so that they can be able to make decisions and improve our ability. And now, as an educator and researcher, how do you recommend teachers and institutions incorporate database hands on teaching into their AI and machine learning curricula? 00;04;54;09 - 00;05;25;13 What approaches or tools have you found most effective for engaging student in this critical area? Number one is that if I may just mention something about as a Jomo Kenyatta, we reviewed our curriculum and one of the things that we did, in the reading of the curriculum that is currently being used is that we are very keen to make sure that we retain and then and force the aspect of covering database systems. 00;05;25;16 - 00;05;57;22 So there is and you cover sections in database systems in detail, looking at how to design them to the extent of looking at the advanced concept in databases, which of course goes to the extent of talking about considering security and such aspect in databases. So, it is a very important component to when you are teaching databases, one has to consider, number one, the fact that these are the people who then go ahead and now come on. 00;05;57;24 - 00;06;26;28 I introduction to AI and also machine learning. And they will be consuming these, these databases. So what we have done is that we, able to provide this background and then when it comes to no coverage tools like Oracle databases, the country AI, which of course, I found very important because it uses AI in vector search, for data retrieval, analysis of AI driven applications. 00;06;26;28 - 00;06;52;14 It's a very well thought up idea in terms of trying to integrate advanced AI, capabilities directly to the database engine. The idea behind this is because we, we would want smart data handling capability to be ingrained in the data. We would want to have advanced analytics to be also, ingrained within these, these kind of databases. 00;06;52;17 - 00;07;20;04 And also if you think about known going to the industry, we would be the industries would work to get, insights from their data on what they can be able to do with that. So what I would say is that when you are now teaching and you look at, you have taught concept in databases, and now when you go to teaching things like machine learning or AI, you are able to show that compute the students or even the runners. 00;07;20;06 - 00;07;42;05 The connection between having a good foundation in databases and using various tools and understanding how to make use of, various, tools that are coming up. Like I mentioned, data restrict the I was at points that I needed, making the process of, being able to, to get insights from your data are very important. 00;07;42;10 - 00;08;11;12 So it means that these people, when they go in the industry, they have skills and practical skills that they can be able now to demonstrate in the industry that whatever they are, brand has value and they can and value to the businesses. So it is very relevant that as we teach, first of all, the thinking through about the curriculum, the way it is designed in such a way that it allows for students to do practical concept that leads them to be applicable to the industry. 00;08;11;15 - 00;08;52;00 It's very important and includes that exist within for or instructor for instructors that that are already online that that they can be able to use some of the courses that that are being designed for them, that they can be able to use the event for, programing, databases, that exist today at PL SQL. Like I mentioned one, we have a database programing with SQL itself to be able to give a foundation and then going to things like, artificial intelligence so that the concept in artificial intelligence, we don't just think that they can only be implemented in Python, we can implement them in Java, we can implement them in other things. 00;08;52;02 - 00;09;14;11 We just need to understand the concept. And then we are able to do that practically. That's that. That it empowers that person, empowers the students, that eventually we are able to get our, you know, our system, having done those practical’s. And now for students interested in pursuing a career in, I do think they should start by building a strong foundation in database skills. 00;09;14;14 - 00;09;39;08 How does database knowledge empower their journey in AI and machine learning? Well, I think that what I would say is, number one is that if you look at the Oracle Academy, which, is a tool that is really very valuable, to teach and also, demonstrate some of the tools that also exist and also provision of software tools, cloud and also software tools. 00;09;39;10 - 00;10;00;18 And we also have BigQuery. But you can download content that you can download. And it also provides assessment that you can use in class. The idea is that you don't have to use it the way it is. You can take it and then you add or even subtract the items that you want to do it. So it's content that is ready and you can use it as it is. 00;10;00;18 - 00;10;34;23 Or you can be to, custom it the way you would want. It allows for, researchers to be able to focus on being able to improve and having something that we can start with. So, there is a point that exists, especially the library. The EDI, and power, even students we are talking about, even students logging in and

In this episode host Tyra Peirce speaks with Scott Stroz, MySQL evangelist about how Data and AI work together.   -----------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;09;02 - 00;00;34;16 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce. 00;00;34;18 - 00;01;01;19 I'm your host, Tyra Peirce. In this episode, I speak with Oracle, my SQL developer advocate Scott Stroz, about how AI uses data, and the database skills students need to have as they work with AI. So, Scott, you're a returning guest for me. Can you give me a little bit about your background and role at Oracle? For those who may not have listened to our previous podcasts. 00;01;01;22 - 00;01;24;27 Sure. So, first and foremost, I consider myself a full stack developer and I've been a full stack developer for longer than the term full stack developer has actually been in existence. And in that time, the only technology in my stack that has remained constant is MySQL. I used it on my first job as a web developer, and I still use it today, and I've used it pretty much every day in between. 00;01;25;00 - 00;01;47;09 A lot of people, even people in the tech industry, they frequently ask, what does it mean that you're a developer advocate? And there's a lot of people I'm friends with and, I've met in developer relations, where we each kind of have like our own elevator pitch, like a quick, you know, 1 or 2 sit ins answer to basically get people to understand what it is that we do. 00;01;47;11 - 00;02;10;12 And the one that I've come up with is my job is to help developers be better at their jobs and I accomplish, or I hope I accomplish this in, different ways by producing content for developers through blog posts or, videos or podcasts such as this. I also, speak at conferences and I do a guest lectures for colleges and schools. 00;02;10;15 - 00;02;29;26 You are such a wonderful resource. And I we work together quite a bit, and I, I think it's good because I think that a lot of times developers don't understand what they're getting into or the different ways that they can develop and change codes. And I love that. I've got an expert that we can call on, and especially about this new topic. 00;02;29;28 - 00;03;00;18 So, kind of segue into that new topic. How does a I use data to learn SQL? It's a kind of a complicated answer, but it's also probably simpler than some people might think. With the recent release of Heat Wave, which is an AI solution in, Heat Wave that's available on Oracle Cloud, I've started playing around a little bit more than I had been, but it hasn't been with like the front end where I asked, I can I chat by questions, and it would give me answers. 00;03;00;21 - 00;03;22;07 It's been more feeding data into an AI engine, which in this case was heat wave Gen I. And while I was tinkering, I came to the realization that AI is not some black magic that just can pull answers out of thin air when you ask the question. It's just all based on math, and it's not even a new kind of math. 00;03;22;07 - 00;03;41;28 The math has actually been around for a long time, and I gotta say, I was a little a little disappointed. I was kind of hoping for some black magic, but for a genuine AI solution to be able to find pertinent data. So, if you ask a question, I put a chat bot the way it needs to find the answers. 00;03;41;28 - 00;04;14;16 And the first thing we need to do is we need to make sure that we get what are called embeddings of the source data. And this is basically what we use to feed in AI. And if we want it to say get embeddings for a collection of PDFs in any solution, we can actually use heat wave AI to run a stored procedure that will fetch the documents out of a bucket, a storage bucket in Oracle Cloud, and then it breaks down each document into a series of tokens. 00;04;14;18 - 00;04;43;24 Now, in the AI world, a token is a small series of a small set of characters. It can be a single word. It can be multiple words, or sometimes it can actually just be a small part of a longer word. And then using some mathematical algorithms, these tokens are converted into what we call a vector. And a vector is nothing more than an array of hexadecimal data, hexadecimal values that represent that token. 00;04;43;27 - 00;05;11;01 And this is our embedding. And those are stored typically in a database. There are other systems. This isn't just unique. The heat wave Gemini, other Gemini systems have a very similar process for ingesting the source data. And one of the most popular uses of AI solutions is what's called a retrieval augmented generation, or RAC, or what we would know as like an AI chat bot. 00;05;11;07 - 00;05;33;29 So, you open up a chat window when you start asking questions, and the AI spits back answers based off of the source data, and it's using the way it gets the answers to the questions is it actually takes the question. And using those same algorithms that you used with the source data, it actually gets embeddings for the question itself. 00;05;34;01 - 00;06;04;13 And then using some built in database functions. And in the case of heatwave and AI uses, a function that determines how far the tokens in the question are from the tokens in the source data. And again, that's some mathematical algorithm that I haven't even begun to try and understand. And with heat wave genAI, when you ask the questions, there's actually another stored procedure you can run to actually run like a chat bot. 00;06;04;25 - 00;06;41;06 And it will take the embeddings that matched in the source data and send that to the large language model that resides in the database. Or Liam is what people more commonly known as that. And it takes those that information those embeddings that matched and it generates a more human sounding response to the question. I've noticed when I've gone through and I've asked, and I a question like you can still tell it's a computer when they respond, but they are getting better and better and better, and the information coming back is excellent. 00;06;41;09 - 00;07;15;05 And it is really, really good information. They still don't have the human and the human inflection, the human tone. And you can tell when you're right, but it's getting really good. And so, then on to my next question. How can I use data to improve performance? So, because the entire process, which you know, from ingesting the data to actually retrieving relevant data from the embeddings, is based on math, the results can actually be incredibly accurate. 00;07;15;05 - 00;07;37;29 Like you just said, it's it gets better and better almost every day, and AI systems can process large amounts of data and make that the data and available. That tends to be more accurate than if you did like a database, like search, in a SQL query, or even a full text search in a database, or even better than what you get in some search engines. 00;07;38;02 - 00;08;13;02 Why does the quality of data impact the results AI provides? Well, it's funny that even in a new technology like AI in old adage is still true. And that is garbage in, garbage out. And all this really means is if you input bad or inaccurate data, your results are not going to be accurate. When you feed data into an AI system, you need to make sure that it's high quality and it's accurate because if it's not, then any results you get are not going to be high quality and they're not going to be accurate. 00;08;13;04 - 00;08;34;24 What are some of the skills that database professionals should have when they work with AI? Something a lot of people may not be aware of is that every AI solution, whether it's a chat bot or something else, it uses some kind of storage, usually a database, on the back end to store the embeddings for the data. 00;08;34;27 - 00;09;04;09 And while there's nothing particularly special or different about how we store vector data compared to other data types such as strings or dates, it's something that database professionals need to keep in mind when ingesting that data. Can I back up here? Let's go back to the. While there's nothing particularly different or special about how this data is stored compared to other data such as strings and dates, there is one thing database professionals need to keep in mind when ingesting this data. 00;09;04;12 - 00;09;31;18 Embeddings can take up a lot of space. So, for example, I was working on a demo for Heat Wave AI, and I used a PDF that was just a few megabytes in size, and it generated over 55,000 rows of embeddings. Now, the process of creating and retrieving embeddings can also be resource intensive. 00;09;31;21 - 00;09;53;02 So, there might not be special skills needed to store and retrieve the embeddings in the AI data. But we need to make sure that the system has enough resources so that the CPU and Ram is adequate, as well as having storage space. So those are probably the three things that database administrators or people who work in databases need to concentrate on. 00;09;53;02 - 00;10;11;29 More than anything else when working with the AI system. So, Scott, one final question then if you could give one piece of advice to faculty, your students, what would it be? All right, so I'm going to cheat here. I'm going to give two pieces of advice. So, the first piece of advice will be to learn as much as you can about AI. 00;10;12;01 - 00;10;32;22 AI is everywhere, probably even in places it doesn't belong. And while I think the fad is going to die down, I also think AI is here to stay. There won't be a single area in the IT field that won't be influenced by AI in

In this episode host Tyra Peirce speaks with Win Chang, Director Cloud Engineering, Susan Poser, NACI Director of Partner Engagement, and Susan Miller, Sr. Director, Global Product Security about working as a women in tech and how women can find their voice.   --------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;09;02 - 00;00;34;25 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce. 00;00;34;27 - 00;01;01;00 I'm your host, Tyra Peirce. In this episode, I speak with Win Chang, director, cloud engineering, Susan Poser, director of partner engagement. And Susan Miller, senior director, Global Product Security, about working as a woman in tech and how women can find their voice. A little bit about my guests. Susan Miller graduated at Santa Clara University with a bachelor's in computer science and started her career as a software engineer. 00;01;01;02 - 00;01;26;26 She quickly obtained a master's in computer science and artificial intelligence and an MBA. She then moved into technical program management, overseeing program managers, release engineers, doc writers labs, and then security was added on. Now Susan is in a corporate oversight role for security assurance for products and services across all Oracle. Susan Poser has held a variety of roles during her 40-year career. 00;01;26;29 - 00;01;55;14 Susan has two Bachelors of Science, one in business and another in journalism, and then earned her MBA and finance from San Diego State University. She has held roles in finance, accounting, marketing, business operations, solution engineering, culture and employee engagement and now partner ecosystem, all for high tech companies Unisys, Teradata and Oracle. Outside of Oracle, Susan is the board chair for Athena, a global women's advisory organization. 00;01;55;17 - 00;02;25;09 When Chang majored in computer science with a minor in business at University of Houston, she started her career in software development and has held numerous roles, including technical support, education marketing, pre-sales manager, Cloud Acceleration Director and VP of Customer Experience. She is currently the Solution Engineering Director for Higher Education. She is the founder of Oracle Professional Asian Leadership and Employee Resource Group focused on raising culture awareness and providing leadership development. 00;02;25;11 - 00;02;46;07 She is also on the board for Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, an organization committed to protect the historic site and celebrate immigrant contribution that define the strength of the United States. Thank you, Susan, Susan and Win, for joining me today. So, my first question to all of you, can you give me a bit about your background and your role at Oracle? 00;02;46;11 - 00;03;20;13 Susan Miller, do you want to go ahead and start? Yeah, sure. Thank you, chair, and thanks for having us today. I'm a senior director of global product security. I get the chance to work with all the security leaders across all our Oracle divisions, and I get to ensure that teams are adhering to the security assurance standards. So, one of my strengths then is to the ability to share best practices from other divisions and allow all at Oracle to learn from the best of the best, and then that eases their adoption and the flow of information across all the divisions. 00;03;20;15 - 00;03;45;09 Winner Susan Poser, do either of you want to jump in? Sure, I can jump in. This is Susan Poser, and I pretty much worked on the sales side of my whole career at Oracle, starting in pre-sales and then value selling to employee programs for resellers. So, when my last position was eliminated, the leader of the partner organization and the sales team asked me to join his team to help transform our culture to be more partner friendly, partner forward. 00;03;45;11 - 00;04;12;23 So now I work very closely with our sales and operations teams, as well as our sales leaders, to embed partner content, and processes into our business as usual so that our sellers will embrace and leverage our partners more as we move forward in this cloud world. And finally, when what about you as a cloud engineering director, I managed to be a cloud architect and support our sales team for higher education. 00;04;12;25 - 00;04;48;14 We cover the entire territory of the United States. Our role is to provide technical assistance to the field sales team. And a typical day for me would be participating on, calls with my direct reports, delivering presentations at a conference or, participating in customer meetings and also assisting our, customers. One of the best parts of this job, this is to be able to talk to our customers and share how or our Oracle solutions can provide and solve their most important problems. 00;04;48;16 - 00;05;08;27 I love all the diverse background that all of you wonderful women come from, and all of the different, paths you took to get to where you're at. So, leading on to my next question. Can you share a proud moment or a major accomplishment from your career so far? And this time? Susan Poser, I'd like to start with you. 00;05;08;29 - 00;05;25;20 I've had a few, but one that had the biggest impact to Oracle as well as, I think to our customers, is with my role and our value selling team, which was called Oracle Insight. A matter of fact, that's how I met win was we had done, an engagement with our customer and that she had worked with. 00;05;25;22 - 00;05;46;24 But when you think of, our value selling team or Oracle Insight, it's, you think about, like, management consultants. We hired a lot of excuse Allen McKinsey types of folks, and we would go in and work with our customers to understand how, understand what their priorities were and how technology could help enable some of their, you know, 3-to-5-year goals. 00;05;46;27 - 00;06;17;19 I was responsible for the systems and the processes and the internal and external communications, as well as the marketing. We were the longest running sales program at Oracle, and we scaled from nine people when we started the program to over 500, impacting billions of dollars in revenue. And, you know, one of the key things that enabled us to do that was because of the knowledge management, the processes and the systems that I had put together that allowed us to scale and make this impact for both Oracle and our global customers. 00;06;17;21 - 00;06;55;09 And then Susan Miller, what about you? Well, with the onset of the and quick adoption of I machine learning, that's the reason to be able to participate in many executive forums representing security and besides ensuring regulatory and privacy coverage, we're also making sure that security assurance is paramount. So, I've been able to gain adoption now of new process flows, new guidelines, practices, and I've now expanded our interactions with data scientists and other security architects and of course, others corporate oversight groups as well. 00;06;55;11 - 00;07;16;02 It's been successful, and I'm very proud of it. I can't even imagine with how AI is coming to the forefront, especially within Oracle and in the tech industry. I think that is so amazing. And then when finally, over to you again. So, when I was the key account director for a large health care company, we grew our Oracle footprint by over 1,500%. 00;07;16;05 - 00;07;45;23 And that was done by a combination of team collaboration and developing this deep, trusted customer relationship. We earned the Presidential Award for Account Management three years in a row, and it was a defining, time for me, to see how our customers, succeeded with Oracle products and solution. And then secondly, I just wanted to add that being the founder of the Oracle Professional Asian Leadership, has been a real highlight for me. 00;07;45;23 - 00;08;14;11 Today. We have over 700, members globally, and that is been something that I'm very proud about. Well, and you should be. That was the second time Win, and I engaged was with Opal and it was one of the fastest growing employee resource groups in Oracle. So, she should be very proud of that. Absolutely. I think when you and I met back when you covered that healthcare company years ago with, Java one for kids, I think that that's when we first came into contact all those many years ago. 00;08;14;14 - 00;08;34;14 You're right. So next question. How were you able to find your voice and to advocate for yourself as a woman in tech? And when this time I'm actually going to start with you. That's a great question. And I have to say that earlier in my career, I really struggled with trying to find my voice. I didn't have a mentor. 00;08;34;15 - 00;09;02;27 Matter of fact, I probably didn't even know what a mentor was. And, once I found my advocates, that made a big difference. I have to say that my I created this personal board of directors that actually two of my personal board of directors were on this call. Susan. So, they are just amazing. And, I'd say that to this personal board of directors is kind of like a baseball team where you have all different types of coaches. 00;09;03;00 - 00;09;28;18 You know, like a first base coach or a third base coach. So, I'm assembled my own board of directors, and they've been a game changer. I leverage these resources, but I have difficult tasks or proactively ask them for advice, what I needed. And I think that, really helps me to keep my head. You know, I used to think that if I just kept my head down and did hard work and everybody would know what I'm doing. 00;09;28;18 - 00;09;52;12 But the truth is that, only y

In this episode, host Tyra Crockett Peirce speaks with Wei Jiang, an Oracle AI researcher and former university professor, about the privacy impacts of AI.   --------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;09;03 - 00;00;35;11 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the Future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.   00;00;35;13 - 00;01;05;09 I'm your host, Tara Pierce. In this episode, I speak with Wade Young, an oracle, an AI researcher, about the privacy impacts of A.I. To start off, can you give me a bit about your background and your role at Oracle? Sure. Thank you for inviting me today. So, before we join Oracle for 2022, I had been a computer science faculty member within the University of Missouri System for over 14 years.   00;01;05;12 - 00;01;38;03 My maintaining your background is privacy, preserving data analytics and applied cryptography currently. Hamer Research scientist at Oracle Labs East, working on privacy, preserving machine learning solutions, using secure multi-party computation techniques. We investigate price preserving solutions for both traditional machine learning tasks and fine-tuning language models as all around us. What are some of the AI impacts on personal privacy?   00;01;38;05 - 00;02;17;27 This is a great question. There are a few factors I can think of. One, from the data management perspective, requires a larger deal a large amount of data. Training data and the increasing amount of training data makes the data protection more and more challenging, especially when data come from multiple sources and contains sensitive information. The second factor I can think of is regarding the memorization capability of AI as reasoning become more accurate and use memory capability can potentially leak sensitive information.   00;02;17;29 - 00;02;48;05 For example, it happened in the past that a large language model response contains a real security number. Another issue is the fake image and news generated by A.I. So, AI generated images and attacks are very difficult to distinguish from the real ones. These fake images and news can cause a lot of harm to individuals during mutations and invading their privacy.   00;02;48;07 - 00;03;18;17 Another point is also enabling the development of smart aerosol layers and the email spams that could bypass the current malware detection systems. Why isn't a person, computer or mobile device these compromised the invasion of privacy as an agreed risk? Honestly, that is terrifying to hear. And it's so given everything is going on today that is a really terrifying thing to hear that we just can't tell the differences anymore.   00;03;18;17 - 00;03;52;02 And so, with AI, algorithms require large amounts of data to operate. How is data managed to maintain privacy? So why Burden thing to do is to really minimize the information flow so we can set up proper access control policies to eliminate unnecessary access to the data share only what is needed and keep data within their own silos. Secondly, we can apply data, anonymization, technique to hide a private information.   00;03;52;05 - 00;04;25;26 For example, we can suppress and generalize direct or indirect identifying information in front of data such as share security number, address, personal name, zip code, diagnosis. And we can also protect inundated by adding some random noise. Another tool we can use is called the encryption. So, a dating option as another layer of protection by ensuring only the party encoding the decryption key can access the original data.   00;04;25;28 - 00;04;59;23 We also need to use pricey scene technology to train a machine learning model. So, by applying different price sequencing technology, we can prevent the disclosure of training data train model, use inquiry and forensic results. A.I. combines various pieces of data about a person to make inferences, creating risks of privacy, invasion. Are these inferences subject to privacy risks as information can be used in new, unintended ways?   00;04;59;25 - 00;05;32;06 Yes, and definitely so. These inferences allow attackers to carry out certain attacks and they can potentially leak sensitive information. So, for example, membership first in attack determines if especially information was used to train machine learning models. This attack can be used to infer sensitive information about any individual who stay. There might be use theory training, which clearly pose a privacy threat to the individual.   00;05;32;08 - 00;06;13;25 Another kind of attack called the modern-day version of that modeling version of that. So, which allows Tiger here to learn the training data was some pretty soon the training data which could reveal private information. Another attack is called a model iteration attack. Which enables Tiger to derive is a similar model of the heat hidden competition model by repeatedly querying the hidden model and obtaining the information without an attacker can reproduce a highly similar model with a fraction of the cost for training the Asian model.   00;06;13;27 - 00;06;43;27 The learned model can be subsequently used to initiate model invasion and membership fee for attack. What is the commonly used privacy enhancing technologies for machine learning and what are their pros and cons? So traditionally there are a lot of crazy enhancing technologies. So, for now, the most popular ones, I would talk about a few popular ones these days.   00;06;44;00 - 00;07;11;25 First one is called the Internet of Data Generation. So basically, since any data can be generated based on certain properties of the real data in general, since other data generation are reasoned efficient, and the resulting data are effective for machine learning tasks. However, it is hard to analyze and approve their privacy preserving properties. Another thing is called the key enemy.   00;07;11;27 - 00;07;45;18 It is one the data anonymization technique. So, to make a data set anonymous, the original attribute values are suppressed and generalized, such that a data recurring in the resulting dataset is indistinguishable from at least K minus one other data writer. So, although this technique offers a far more security guarantee, it may be difficult to determine. The right amount is for K, and it is often reducing model accuracy.   00;07;45;20 - 00;08;20;22 Another very popular technique called differential privacy. So differential privacy as carefully calibrated noises to the original data model vendors overall results to prevent him for his attacks. The technique offers a formal security guarantee with a good efficiency, but it is often challenging to know the right amount of noise to use and model accuracy can be adversely affected. Another popular technique called the Fader learning.   00;08;20;24 - 00;08;47;01 So, he is learning during training. They remain in their own silos and the model learn locally and then combine to derive a global model which can be shared among the participating parties. So though federated learning is efficient, and effective, local model parameters can still be really information about sensitive training data.   00;08;47;04 - 00;09;21;02 The technique I am most familiar race is called the secure multiparty competition. That's kind of, you know, my maybe grant to Disney's a cryptography technique allow us to train machine learning models without directly accessing sensitive training data. You can also keep the train mono use inquiry and every result private as well as guaranteed moderate accuracy. However, secure multi-party computation partygoers work hard to design and implement.   00;09;21;04 - 00;09;43;19 They are computationally expensive and do not scale well. That's a lot of information about different ways to train, and it's so entirely fascinating on all of the things that are coming up that everybody's going to need to start learning about how we secure our data more effectively. When we when we enter this new era of artificial intelligence.   00;09;43;21 - 00;10;13;29 My last question, if you could give one piece of advice to faculty or students, what would it be? I said this on my working experience of the in both academia and industry. I believe collaboration is essential to find the right person to work with and achieve a highly effective collaboration. We need to be as part of our own technical domain and knowledgeable about technology and tools to the first quality.   00;10;13;29 - 00;10;34;28 Allow us to be the go-to person. Right? When I read a problem comes up the organization related to you, to your technical domain. The second quality them to find the go to person for guidance and help you there to solve a problem at hand. The side of overall high spirits. So, I would like to end this question.   00;10;34;28 - 00;10;54;27 We still coach knowing something for everything and everything. And this one thing I think that is a really wonderful piece of advice because teamwork is so essential, especially as we're going into this next phase of technology with AI and making sure that, you know, we become an expert on one thing and that we can find people to help us.   00;10;54;27 - 00;11;15;06 I think that's always a really important, important skill to have been being able to work effectively with others. So, thank you two ways for speaking with me today about AI privacy, who is very insightful. Please visit Academy dot Oracle dot com to learn more about Oracle Academy and the resources we offer to faculty and students. And please subscribe to our podcast.   00;11;15;11 - 00;11;22;25 Thanks. Way. That wraps up this episode. Thanks for listen

In this episode host Tyra Peirce speaks with Professor Matthew Wheelwright from Brigham Young University and his former students Cade Bleazard and Nolan Stirling on how learning Primavera Cloud has helped prepare them for careers in construction management.   ---------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;00;00 - 00;00;34;19 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the Future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.   00;00;34;22 - 00;01;02;22 I'm your host, Tyra Peirce. In this episode, I speak with Matthew Wheelwright from Brigham Young University and his former students, Nolan Sterling and Cade Bleazard, about their experience with Primavera Cloud in the classroom. Primavera Cloud is available through Oracle Academy for Teaching and learning to select faculty who meet certain criteria and are selected through an extensive application process.   00;01;02;24 - 00;01;28;23 We're going to talk about how Primavera Cloud has helped prepare them for careers in construction management. Thank you, Matt, Cade and Nolan for joining me today. First question, can you give me a bit about your background and the class at BYU? Yeah, I'm Matt Wheelwright. I'm a professor at Brigham Young University in Civil and Construction Engineering, specializing in construction management.   00;01;28;26 - 00;02;07;19 My background is in residential homebuilding, mostly in California and Utah, and I teach CFM for 12, which is our scheduling class, and also a few other classes Construction safety, real estate development and anywhere else that kind of need me. And in the class, we tend to focus on critical path methods, CPM and balancing and leveling resources. We've recently introduced tact planning or flow and pull planning and OBC.   00;02;07;22 - 00;02;25;01 Oracle Primavera Cloud is a great opportunity for our students to get hands on experience with software and it makes a big difference. So that's a little bit about me. I'm Nolan Sterling. I'm from Cave Creek, Arizona.   00;02;25;03 - 00;03;06;05 I am. I just recently graduated from Brigham Young University in 2023 and now currently just working full time for BHP. I graduated from the construction management program and absolutely loved it and I really kind of got into construction. The at least the program construction management just kind of by chance. But I have loved it. I love the opportunity as it gives you to not only work on the office side, but also be out in the field with the guys and work with your hands and truly just solving puzzles all day.   00;03;06;07 - 00;03;28;05 So my name is Cade Bleazard, similar to Noah, and I'm also from Arizona. I'm from kind of a Chandler Gilbert area and kind of from a young age. I always knew I wanted to be in construction. I've always known I wanted to build homes, but how to get there was never really clear in my mind. My dad is a civil engineer.   00;03;28;07 - 00;03;45;03 We grew up with a lot of woodworking tools and saw stuff at our house, and so I kind of grew up around it. And then when I was 18 years old, my dad actually brought it up that BYU had a construction management program and thought it'd be a good idea to take the intro class. And from there I was.   00;03;45;03 - 00;04;07;15 I was sold on it and have loved every second of it. I just graduated in April of this year and I currently work for Hawthorne Homes, a local custom home builder here. It's been a great time and I am super grateful for my time at BYU and especially in this program.   00;04;07;18 - 00;04;46;27 So how has using OPC in the classroom improved the student experience?  Yeah, I think it's great preparation for their future. In fact, one of the and it's not necessarily because they all go out and use OPC from day one because realistically that's not quite possible yet and maybe someday. But I read this quote from our textbook every semester when we get to the point of using the software and it's “ Once a manager has mastered one project management software program, it is easier to learn another”.   00;04;46;29 - 00;05;23;16 So I really emphasize that, hey, once you've really gotten into OPC, which is, you know, maybe the big leader of the bunch, you can really go off and do almost anything. But to be able to put it on your resumé. To get that real hands-on experience. And it's so much better than past approaches in terms of being able to use it on the cloud and use it on their own laptops at home and in the classroom just makes a huge difference in the ease of class and the ease of I mean, it's hard enough to learn a new software.   00;05;23;20 - 00;06;03;11 They don't need all of the kind of technical difficulties that go along with the computer if they can avoid it. So it's really been great to get them into it and give them the chance to kind of go by trial and error a little bit at times and work their way through for their future. Looking at it from both angles of when I took the class as a student and then the couple of semesters that I had the privilege of being a T.A. scheduling as a whole and construction can be a hard topic and skill to master for sure, and especially so many of us in in the Construction management program, this is the first time that we're being exposed to it and really understanding how it operates. I found that OPC really made difficult content more digestible. I found myself as a student. I was able to see these skills of planning ahead of allocating costs and seeing who's on what job, at what times that OPC was able to make that easier to understand.   00;06;26;10 - 00;06;53;18 But it also gave each of the students the opportunity just to kind of tinker to mess around with it, to see how these changes can affect the project further down the line. Yeah, I think it was a great opportunity, really just kind of buttoning up what we'll write and what kids said. OPC allowed you to not only coordinate with other students, but work on your own projects better than any other software that I had used.   00;06;53;20 - 00;07;23;27 I had the opportunity to also use P6 in my college career and in Microsoft Project. Asked a little bit and OPC really made it easiest for me to work with my professors and work with other students and it was kind of hard at the time seeing how applicable it would be out in the real world, but it was very streamlined and it made it easy to work to stay with Nolan and Cade.   00;07;23;27 - 00;07;55;19 What are some of the skills that you learned using OPC? OPC You know, going back to kind of the main reason of scheduling is kind of just putting order in, you know, aspects of your life. And when it comes to a job, you know, putting order to the different parts of a project, the preconstruction, the construction and the closeout phases of projects are all easily done in OPC.   00;07;55;21 - 00;08;35;19 But I also found that getting more familiar with OPC made it easier to kind of coordinate and schedule my life. And that does sound pretty cliche, but, you know, dedicating time and resources to one thing opposed to another really helps teach me how to do it the same thing in my personal life. Funny you should mention that I'm actually using OPC for some projects that I manage at work, and I'm finding that I am seeing that as well, that I'm breaking more tasks down, I'm getting it into a particular place and then being able to collaborate more effectively with my team as well.   00;08;35;21 - 00;09;05;22 So I totally get and I totally understand. And and Cade, what about you? What would you like to add? I think one of the biggest skills and just kind of life lessons that I learned while learning OPC and teaching OPC is that the more time you spend on the front end of a project, whether it be a construction project or any big event in life, really understanding your scope, understanding your project, and then planning it out and plugging those details in the smoother it's going to run.   00;09;05;25 - 00;09;29;08 And that's something that in class we would emphasize is that the more time we spend in the early stages of OPC or in pre-construction understand the details, plugging it in and in in an organized manner, it's going to help everything else be easier to understand. It's going to run smoother. And I think similar to Nolan and what he explained is that it really does carry into life.   00;09;29;11 - 00;09;49;10 You just kind of learn that flying by the seat of your pants doesn't really work. But if you can spend time on the front end, planning things out, ironing it out, everything is just going to run a lot smoother. I really love that and I feel I feel the same way like it is. If you learn how to plan, you learn how to schedule, you get more done, you accomplish more things.   00;09;49;12 - 00;10;16;10 And that's kind of segueing into my next question and math. This one is going to be to start off with you. So why is knowing OPC important for students preparing for a career in construction management? I think it's very clear that modern construction practice, facilities management, real estate, you know, you go down the list of the components of our industry and scheduling is the big emphasis.   00;10;16;10 - 00;11;00;08 It's a part of the contract, it's part of the legal documents. If we're not spending the time I just mentioned in the pre-construction getting the schedule right, well, we're never going to earn bids. We're never going to complete projects on time under budget with the quality that we want. And scheduling is just a key part of that. And I would add further that one of the aspects that I really harp on with my students is

How students can develop career-ready, hands-on skills within the construction management field In this episode, Tyra Peirce chats with Dr. Aziz, Associate Professor, University of Washington, a construction management industry expert, who discusses teaching and learning of construction management, including project methods and the benefits a robust software like Oracle Primavera P6 can offer. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;09;03 - 00;00;34;12 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.   00;00;34;14 - 00;00;57;07 I'm your host, Tyra Pierce. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Aziz, a professor in construction management at the University of Washington. Dr. Aziz and I speak about how learning P6 is helping prepare his construction students for careers. Welcome, Dr. Aziz. Thank you. To start off, can you give me a bit about your background and the class you teach at University of Washington?   00;00;57;14 - 00;01;17;26 But I thank you for having me again. It's a pleasure to be with you. I have a doctoral degree in civil engineering majoring in construction, engineering and management, and I'm an associate professor with the University of Washington. Before joining the academia, I used to work for a civil infrastructure company in Calgary, Alberta. But I had two roles to do.   00;01;17;26 - 00;01;45;11 A project analyst for mega projects and the project control engineer responsible for the development of construction schedules, for the company of projects which mainly were bridges and highways. So that was my main job with the company. In 2003 I joined the University of Washington to teach and research in construction management. Where now I am an associate professor along with teaching the university.   00;01;45;14 - 00;02;11;12 I prefer that we keep in touch with the industry. And so, to convey the latest information and this knowledge to our students of the classes and that's where I have a little bit side work for consulting and training on construction management training and Primavera and other software applications. I get to know Primavera, you could say, since the 1980s, the late 1900s, it is a very long time.   00;02;11;14 - 00;02;33;15 And that was during my studies in Egypt. And then later I used Primavera for several professional and training jobs. And when I joined UDAP, I started to work with Primavera through the Oracle Academy. I teach a number of classes UDAP. So, my first one is the planning and control, and that's for planning and control and scheduling of construction projects.   00;02;33;17 - 00;03;01;17 This is mainly the principles and practices of the critical Path method, the major method that we use in construction management. I also teach the construction computer applications. It's a hands-on lab for software use in the planning and control of construction. And then I also teach the certificate program classes, which also hands on technology is a software application for planning and construction.   00;03;01;20 - 00;03;24;14 Then I have a set of graduate classes for project economics and risk analysis and for the heavy construction estimating. So, you could see that the university keeps me busy with teaching mainly in the construction management area. So, that is a really interesting and unique background. I like how you are still involved in industry in making sure that you're keeping abreast of what is going on.   00;03;24;16 - 00;03;54;14 And so, which is I think while you're very qualified to give an answer to this next question that I have. What are some essential skills that construction management students need to learn? A great question. Construction management students are practical type of students. They are hands on students or learners. And so, in our department, to try to give them the skills that they need to be qualified was in order to practice and do the job quite well in the industry.   00;03;54;16 - 00;04;21;24 As you could see that there is kind of four essential categories of skills that they need to have. First one is to create cost estimates, construction schedules, safety plans. They should be very well and excellent in communication. The management side of the industry. Another one is to ability to have the ability to analyze construction documents, analyze construction methods and materials and equipment so that you will be able to select the proper ones for construction tasks.   00;04;21;27 - 00;04;47;13 You should be able to apply the electronic based technology to manage construction processes and tasks. And that's where the major software used by the industry. We teach them at the of the art department in our classes. And then finally, to be able to understand the construction accounting project control, risk management, our quality assurance, all these types of work that they will be working with in the industry once they graduate.   00;04;47;15 - 00;05;18;16 And that is so interesting that there's all these different types of skills, whether it's accounting or scheduling or project management or even time management that is just kind of really essential to construction management, which kind of leads onto my next question How does studying software packages and maybe in particular Primavera help to teach students these skills? Well, as I mentioned, the construction management in our program uses in several classes a suite of software applications to teach our students various disciplines.   00;05;18;17 - 00;05;40;01 We have planning and control, we have cost estimating, we have virtual reality. And so, applications like the Revit for BIM on the screen and blue beam for quality take off Comfortline for cost Estimating Primavera and Project for planning control. Several other applications. We have to get them be ready for that. And so, in some of my core classes primavera the focus.   00;05;40;01 - 00;06;13;28 And so, in my undergraduate construction computer applications, the professional certificate classes and in the capstone graduate class, they need to work with the software to do the work of planning, scheduling and so on. The and the CM, the construction management field. The students need tools to help them with hands on practice. And so specifically on the planning and control area, the students need to have software application that can implement the technical rules of the critical path method CPM as the main measure method that we use in the management of project.   00;06;13;28 - 00;06;46;16 And so, they need to be able to work with the software that implement to that. They need to be able to generate construction schedules and reports, facilitates updating of projects, generate progress reports, major performance like using the earn it value analysis method and carry out risk analysis. We also need to have a resilient application that can communicate with other software application such as Excel and Project and many of those other applications that are used by the industry as well are Primavera and the add ins provided that to me as an educator.   00;06;46;18 - 00;07;14;01 And so, since 2005, after two years from joining the university, I started to contact with the Oracle Academy, where I received the 100 of licenses of Primavera. That was like a grace for me to have Primavera where to be used in the classes since I used to work with it in the industry. And so, it becomes very a great opportunity to get them to learn a software that's being used by the industry as an educator.   00;07;14;01 - 00;07;40;10 Also, I then more than the technical, the scheduling capabilities that the students need to know, which is managed by the software itself, but they also get to work with the Enterprise project, the structure and the organizational structure. These are constructs in Primavera I use them to develop a structure for my classes, so I develop work areas for my students who are each student in a class.   00;07;40;10 - 00;08;02;14 I have access to one specific work area to create projects, to create resources separate from all other students. At the same time, I have an instant access to all that the students do in the work areas so I can interactively fix errors that might have in their projects and I keep the integrity of the class so no one would copy the work of others.   00;08;02;20 - 00;08;36;15 And so, the enterprise project, the structure and the OVS allowed me to generate that. It also allowed me to generate and create collaborative areas where multiple students could actually work on the same project. This collaboration is great when we do capstone projects and join a project, and it also allowed me to create quizzes and exam areas. Many are working in an exam setting and then you have your own specific area that you are working in Primavera, and the next students are also working on the same software, but they cannot copy from each other and shoot using the apps and the ops.   00;08;36;15 - 00;09;02;07 I was able to create that environment where everyone is responsible about the project that they do without having to work or to deal with any other student in that class. I think that's really interesting because it's kind of giving them that real world feel that they're actually seeing in their classroom where they're where collaboratively, but then they're working separately and being able to work together, I think is really a unique opportunity, which kind of leads into my next question.   00;09;02;10 - 00;09;33;24 What are some career paths for construction management students? The essential industry for us is th

In this episode Tyra Peirce speaks with Oracle Principal Architect and adjunct professor Victor Statchura about teaching cloud computing in the classroom, and some of the specific things that faculty should think about when they embark on teaching students in the cloud.   ----------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;09;03 - 00;00;35;10 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the Future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.   00;00;35;11 - 00;01;06;09 I'm your host here appears in this episode. I'm joined by Oracle Principal Solution architect and adjunct University of Buffalo instructor Victor Stachura. In this episode, Victor and I speak about setting up cloud software and how it differs from setting up on premise software. Welcome, Victor. Thanks, Tyra. Glad to be here. So, to start off, can you give me a little bit about your background, your role at Oracle and the class you teach at University of Buffalo?   00;01;06;13 - 00;01;30;10 Sure, I can do that. I've got a long history, which means I've got a lot of experience. I've been working for a long time. I've been with Oracle for about just over three years. I've been teaching at the University of Buffalo for over ten years. I'm always in an adjunct role. Right now, I'm a principal solution architect, so I'm in a pre-sale’s tactical role.   00;01;30;12 - 00;02;01;12 Prior to that, at other companies, I was director of Enterprise architecture, software engineer, presales consultant, all kinds of different things. So, the courses I teach one is called Enterprise Models, which is basically a consulting solution architect type course, and the other one, which is more applicable to this podcast was called Big Data Technologies. So, students learned about concepts of big data, and they were hands on with Hadoop.   00;02;01;14 - 00;02;28;00 So, for someone who's interested in using cloud in their classroom, what is a key difference between cloud and on prem software? Well, when I started this course and I've been working with Oracle University, I was very excited to find out that they offer OCI credits to students. I was very concerned about installing Hadoop on each student's laptop because they all don't have laptops.   00;02;28;02 - 00;02;52;26 Some have Windows, different operating systems, some have, you know, Mac, you know, laptops. Some are using tablets. Some are using their phone. So, the previous instructor had a lot of problems with all the students and all the devices and trying to get software loaded up saying, great, let's use OCI. Everyone's working off from the same platform no matter what device they have.   00;02;52;29 - 00;03;20;21 They can access the cloud, and they can go from there. So that was really kind of the idea and the genesis of this whole thing. I wanted to eliminate a whole boatload of problems installing in different devices. So, what are some particular things that you think about when you set up a cloud environment, particularly for the classroom? Yeah, that's a really good question because these students, they were undergraduates, so they had very limited cloud experience.   00;03;20;23 - 00;03;42;11 I think there's a lot of people in industry, even to this day, even though cloud is a multibillion-dollar business for us and other companies, all they know is the marketing literature. I get out a credit card. I can go create an account. I go spin up a compute instance. I can move along. They don't realize all the details that have to go into that.   00;03;42;13 - 00;04;06;17 These kids, I had to give them instructions, too. You had to create private and public keys. What are keys? What are the tools you use to create these keys? They don't know anything about that. Yeah, you can speed up your spin up your environment. Well, you need an Internet gateway so you can access it. You need to use things, you know, different access tools to get into that environment.   00;04;06;19 - 00;04;27;10 You got to change network settings. There are security lists. There's, you know, security on the network cards, storage. You want to use block storage. There's a whole other set of commands you have to do to attach that. So, you need to understand the basics of cloud infrastructure, networking. If you're actually going to go and use some of these things.   00;04;27;10 - 00;04;52;13 It's not just a platform as a service. How to set up a cloud instance differ from setting up an on prem instance? Yeah, it's really understanding. In the cloud instance, you have to understand all that networking. You have to touch all those different parts of OCI and get used to using a lot of new tools. If I'm going to install software on my laptop, I'm going to download IT installer, let it run and away I go.   00;04;52;16 - 00;05;13;22 Okay, so in some respects it might be simple to do that. But again, when you're in a classroom environment, you got 50 kids or 40 kids and they all have different versions of hardware and software, it becomes complicated really quick. I think that's really interesting because we're all operating on different operating systems. I know I have a mac and some of my coworkers have PCs.   00;05;13;24 - 00;05;30;19 And so, when we go in and we're putting things in like our mail programs and we're trying to do share mailboxes, things like that, the commands that they use are different than the commands that I use based on operating system. And I think that, you know, it's cool that once you're in the cloud, that kind of levels, that playing field and everybody's the same.   00;05;30;27 - 00;05;50;15 Exactly. I gave these students very detailed instructions, typed this command, typed that command. I only had to do one set of instructions if I had Mac and Windows at least two. And then there's probably some other variants in there. If somebody throws in Linux or Unix or something else, even like you've got another set of instructions on top of that.   00;05;50;15 - 00;06;12;28 Exactly. Exactly. And these students, some of them are using iPads. They write on their iPads. A lot of them are using their phones. They're Yeah, I know there's tiny little screens, even though iPhone or a galaxy really large, they're using their phones. So how they interact in the classroom is very different than you and I or what we would think or how we.   00;06;13;00 - 00;06;31;28 However, we were back in school, we brought our computers, or we had our just taking notes in our in our notebooks and then going into the computer like that is crazy that they're starting to use their phones now to run their databases and things on the that's just actually several of them had the laptops that they're trying to OCI.   00;06;32;05 - 00;06;55;01 The instructions are on their phone and it's, you know, flipping back and forth. They can barely read it. No one is. They're skipping steps. It wasn't very efficient. I literally said to the class, we may go old school, and I may print these out for your paper because they were missing steps. But I digress. So, what are some key skills that students learn when they set up a cloud instance?   00;06;55;03 - 00;07;16;25 Well, they are going to learn about cloud infrastructure and what needs to be set up for that. They're going to learn about some of the networking infrastructure that needs to be set up. So, they're going to get some hands on with that and they may not have any experience to that. You know, getting that set up the security lists and block storage and those things that I mentioned previous.   00;07;16;27 - 00;07;45;07 The other skill is a soft skill that some students can do well, and others couldn't, meaning figure things out if it didn't work well. Okay, maybe they made a typo in the instructions or in the commands. Maybe they skipped a step. Okay. Or maybe is permission wasn't set up right. Some were very good, and they would do, you know, do a Google search and they would find it or ask a gen.   00;07;45;12 - 00;08;07;13 I know the question and they would solve it on their own. Other kids would say it didn't work. I don't know what to do. So, their lack of problem-solving skills is something I'm going to have to address going forward because I'm going to teach this again. Okay. They will learn some basic even UNIX or Linux commands. Okay.   00;08;07;13 - 00;08;29;27 Because look, there was the operating system we use at our compute instance, Ubuntu Linux. So that was something they're going to learn too. I think it's very interesting you talk about problem solving skills. I think of back in my development days when I had you have to do debugging or testing. I think that that's such an important skill that no matter if you're going to be a programmer or if you're writing instructions or any time you're working in tech.   00;08;29;27 - 00;08;55;07 I think debugging and learning how to figure out what went wrong is always a really, really important skill for everybody to learn. Absolutely. And the thing is, all of us in that class, when I when I taught it, we were not the first ones to encounter any of these problems. Somewhere in the world they found it out and they put it somewhere YouTube or all these tech sites that are out there, Slashdot or whatever.   00;08;55;09 - 00;09;15;16 And there was one group of students that were very good at, I'm going to Google, I'm going to research, I'm going to read the and that's what I was doing, Yeah, okay. Because this is the first time, I had to teach this course, and I had to learn it too. So, I'm doing that research. And then there was other students that I had a talk with, and I says, look, you need t

In this episode, Tyra Peirce speaks with Dr. Gisella Bassani, Associate Professor of Information Systems at University of Colorado Denver about her use of the Oracle Academy Cloud Program for teaching and learning, and how she gets her students started using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.   ----------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;00;00 - 00;00;34;20 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.   00;00;34;22 - 00;00;59;27 I'm your host here appears in this episode. I'm joined by Dr. Gisella Bassani, assistant teaching professor of information systems at University of Colorado, Denver, about her use of the Oracle Academy Cloud program in her classroom and some of the things she does to get her students started using Oracle Cloud infrastructure. Welcome, Dr. Barzani Thank you so much for having me, Tyra.   00;01;00;02 - 00;01;31;09 To start off, can you please give me a bit about your background and the class you teach? I am a information systems professional. I have been working in information systems for over 30 years. And much of the time I was implementing business intelligence systems, working on databases and reporting. About 13 years ago, I decided to switch to academia so that I could pass on my knowledge to the younger generation.   00;01;31;11 - 00;01;59;22 And I've been teaching at universities ever since. Both at BYU and now at Sea Denver. I teach multiple classes, both for graduate and undergraduate. My main focus is databases. Although I do teach everything from business classes and intro to business classes all the way to Excel and Tableau. But my happiness and the thing that I enjoy doing the most is teaching database classes.   00;01;59;24 - 00;02;22;28 How does the cloud environment make it easier for your database students? Did the cloud makes it easier for my database students for multiple reasons. The main one is that many of my students do not have a lot of space on their laptops to run the programs. Many of their laptops barely have enough space for the things that they need to have for other classes.   00;02;23;00 - 00;03;05;00 So this allows them to have a big database and use the software and without any problems. The second reason is because they can use both PC and MAC and different operating systems. So Linux, iOS and Windows all work with the database being in the cloud, and that makes life much, much easier. They also each have their own databases to work with, and I don't have to create an environment in my job at my school to host all of these databases.   00;03;05;07 - 00;03;27;05 So it makes it a lot easier for me, also for maintenance, not just for the students. On the flip side, are there things that make it a bit trickier for your students? Yeah. So there are a couple of things that do create some trickiness. First of all, the cloud database starts every seven days that you are not using it.   00;03;27;06 - 00;03;50;14 So if they go on a break or for some reason they're not focused on your class for about a week and then come back, they have to go in to the Oracle Cloud and actually physically restart the database rather than from the sequel developer on their computer. So that is a bit tricky. They get very flustered with that.   00;03;50;14 - 00;04;19;14 You have to have instructions for them to get through that. Additionally, every semester there seems to be one or two students that once they restart their database, the database does not fully restart correctly. So what happens is that it starts and then every 10 minutes it goes back to the services being stopped and they cannot restart it and keep it on for a long time.   00;04;19;17 - 00;04;45;03 So this seems to be an issue that has not yet found a resolution and it could be linked to creating a database is always free. So you may want to have them delete the database and recreate it, and that might help the student if they do it. Just slightly different with the not always free version checked and the third thing is really understanding the architecture.   00;04;45;05 - 00;05;10;18 They are not very intuitive about client server or cloud software architecture. Sometimes they think it's just all on their computer. And so sometimes you have to just explain that to them a little bit better about what be having something in the cloud means and how their actual computer software is different than the cloud software. I actually like that.   00;05;10;18 - 00;05;37;17 And honestly, I think it's really interesting because we don't they don't understand. A lot of times students are particular that it is different for client server and cloud. Like they don't understand that the software is not living on their machine. The software, the software will probably have the same feature functions, but it will be a little bit different in terms of access points, storage and when they're saving things and things along those lines.   00;05;37;17 - 00;05;57;25 So I think that's another thing that's interesting for them to learn. Also, they can access it from any computer, so they could be on a lab computer one minute or their computer at home the next, and they're still going to be able to have access to their to their database or their OCI in the cloud. Exactly. And this doesn't just happen with Oracle Software.   00;05;57;25 - 00;06;27;06 It's any cloud. Like when they're using the OneDrive, it takes them a very long time when they're freshmen to then understand how the OneDrive sort of works a little bit, you know, compared to having it on their computer. And yeah, it's just a little different. So what are some tips you have for faculty teaching database using OCI that will help their classroom run more smoothly?   00;06;27;08 - 00;06;54;00 Well, that's a great question. So there's quite a few things that you can do to make the classroom run more smoothly. The first thing is make sure that the students know to go in once a week, at least to keep the database operational. So that's number one. The next thing that you should really do is make sure that all of this information is also on your learning management system.   00;06;54;03 - 00;07;25;28 So you should create some videos for the installation and how they install, for example, and how to make sure that they can put the database and start the database again and the services for the database again. You can they can watch those multiple times, so that be helpful for them. With that, you should probably also create a step by step written manual, like in a word doc or something to go along with a video.   00;07;26;00 - 00;08;12;15 This will help them greatly. Some students are very video oriented and want to go through step by step on a video. Others really want something in writing and some students want both. So providing all of that will make sure that there's accessibility for all of your students. The other thing is to create student teams in the classroom. So that's what I have done during my classes, is I create basically study groups or debugging groups where by the students help each other out with technical questions and software issues because some of the low level debugging can easily be done by some of the students that might have higher skill sets within your class.   00;08;12;16 - 00;08;38;26 As you all know, probably the you know that the students don't come in with all the same capabilities. Some of them will have looked at databases before. Some of them may have even program databases before. Whereas others may have never been working much with a computer at all. And there's everything in the middle. So having students help each other will help the classroom more smoothly.   00;08;38;28 - 00;09;02;14 And one more thing. While you're in the classroom and you are lecturing. One of the things that I do is that I pause often and say, Are there any questions? And you can stop me now if you're not where we are so that they catch up better as opposed to waiting till the end where some people got lost somewhere in the middle.   00;09;02;17 - 00;09;19;20 You want them to keep following you? I think those are really useful suggestions and I think it's always important for students to make sure that they work together, that they're collaborative. And I think as students learn how to debug, it helps other students learn how to debug. And so I think that's a that's some really, really helpful advice.   00;09;19;22 - 00;09;59;12 What are some key skills that students studying database should learn? Another great question. So the very first thing to me is database architecture. I think that database architecture is fundamental. You need to understand these. You need to understand what a good database design is. Most interviewers will ask you about normalization and normal forms and relationship types. During the interview, if you don't teach them that and you just teach them how to code, they may not do so well on the professional interviews on the other side.   00;09;59;14 - 00;10;29;25 When I was the manager of a big team, those are the types of questions that we would ask just as a base to know that they understood sequel. So that's one. In terms of coding sequel, of course, from creating tables to querying tables, it's important not to just teach them how to query tables, but also how to do the creation of tables and modification and things like that.   00;10;29;28 - 00;11;08;16 It's really important to have both aspects because if you don't do that, they may not really truly understand what

In this episode host Orlaith Lawton speaks with Oracle Ace Director Finland Heli Helskyaho about the importance of data and continuous learning.   ---------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;09;03 - 00;00;37;15 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the future. Let's get started. Hello, everybody. Today, in February 2024, my name is Orlaith Lawton that I'm the Oracle Academy and Media Marketing Manager.   00;00;37;17 - 00;01;08;27 And I'm delighted to say I'm here with my colleague Rania Herberg, who represents Oracle Academy in Helsinki. And Heli Helskyaho. She is the CEO for Miracle Finland OY. She also holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Helsinki, and she's specialized in databases.   00;01;08;29 - 00;01;44;15 At the moment, she's working on her doctoral studies at the University of Helsinki. And Henry has actually been working on it since 1990. She's also an Oracle ace director and a frequent speaker at my company since she's also an author of Oracle as well. Developer Data Monitor for Database Design Mastery and a coauthor of Real World School and Feel and School Advice from the Experts, Machine Learning for Oracle Database Professionals and several other books.   00;01;44;18 - 00;02;13;01 So we are absolutely delighted to have you here, Heli. Thank you so much for joining us. And let me start off by maybe talking a little bit about to as I mentioned, you're an author and you're very interested in data and it's fantastic to have a female voice in technology. Perhaps you can give us a little bit of background about your role and how you got into technology and became an oracle ACE   00;02;13;02 - 00;02;35;01 So I always love to answer this that I always wanted to be in tech and I always loved computers and that kind of stuff, but I didn't. I actually hated computers, so I was studying mathematics and I didn't know what I want to do when I grow up. And I my father told me to take some computer science classes and I was thinking, okay, why not?   00;02;35;04 - 00;02;55;20 Because actually learning was always very easy for me. So I was thinking, it's going to be a piece of cake, you know, just some computers and that's it. But it was not. So when I took the first course, I barely passed and I didn't understand anything. So that was so frustrating because I was the A-plus student. And I just, you know, didn't understand anything.   00;02;55;28 - 00;03;16;07 So I was blaming the teacher. The teacher must be bad. And I will take another course that is taught by another teacher. But the same happened again. And then I was thinking, it cannot be the teacher, it must be me. So there's something I don't understand about computers and the computer science. And because I always loved challenges, I decided I will take more courses.   00;03;16;07 - 00;03;36;19 I never give up. So I always like to fight. So I was saying, I need to know what. What's the problem? Why don't I understand anything? And I took more and more courses. Finally, I took all their courses you can take as a minus student. And I was thinking, I still don't know anything. So I had to change my major and start with computer science.   00;03;36;20 - 00;03;58;03 So I went to see the faculty principal and I said, I want to change the computer science. And he was like, Are you kidding you? You're very good in math, but you are no good in computer science. So why do you want to change? I said, Well, you just described it. That's why. Because I really don't understand computer science, and I want to understand.   00;03;58;10 - 00;04;18;01 That's why I want to change. And he was okay, I'll sign the paper. But if you if you just decide you made a mistake, come back. But then suddenly I started to understand when I came to data and databases and all this kind of thing, I realized this is my field, so this is what I wanted to do.   00;04;18;03 - 00;04;48;18 Then I was also hired by a computer factory. So I was. I was able to see how the computer is built and it's not rocket science. So I realized this is very understandable for even somebody who is not very technical. If you could say that I'm a super tester, so I break everything I touch. So they didn't let me build any computers, but it was very, very intuitive to see the pieces that you used to build a computer and it somehow made it understandable to me.   00;04;48;19 - 00;05;13;28 So it's it's, it's not that difficult. So kind of after all that struggle, I realized that computer science is definitely for me. And I have never regret my decision. So finding data, finding databases, and now lately machine learning as well. I am so happy where I am at the moment. So this is definitely my career. So what I could tell everybody else is never give up.   00;05;13;28 - 00;05;36;26 So if you feel like you don't know something, it's just a little bit something that should be explained in another way or something that you should try yourself to understand what it actually means. So it doesn't mean that you are stupid or you are not technical or you are not whatever. It's just that you are missing a piece of information and that's why you don't understand.   00;05;36;28 - 00;06;05;09 So yeah, that's my story. In short, and I'm working on my Ph.D. So yeah, computer science is definitely for somebody who doesn't like computers in the beginning. That's really good to hear. That's really interesting to hear how you almost accidentally got into it, because I think it sounds like it was a challenge to more than anything else. But perhaps then you could give or this is more information as to the main subject areas of expertise such as data and how that has helped you in your career.   00;06;05;12 - 00;06;33;08 Well, yeah. So data, I think is everything. So there is nothing in any business if you don't have data. So that's kind of whatever the customer is working on. It's always related to data. So I think that's the reason why I find data very interesting because it has the answer to all the questions that you might have, and that leads to data quality, which is one of my favorite topics.   00;06;33;13 - 00;06;54;29 So saving any kind of data makes no sense. It has to be a good quality data, and that's why database designing is important. That's why machine learning comes important when you have good quality data. So if you have bad data, you can't do any machine learning, You can't build data warehouses, you can't do anything with bad quality data.   00;06;55;01 - 00;07;20;11 So that kind of is my favorite thing. And highlighting that good quality data is the key to everything I may need to touch back on what you were saying earlier on about computer programing, computer science and subject for those who are maybe not naturally inclined to think about it or go into it. And as you know, we have a lot of men in the technology world.   00;07;20;11 - 00;07;45;22 We don't have as many women, unfortunately. And how would you encourage girls who may be interested in trying something new and going into technology or haven't thought about even how? What would you say to girls thinking about technology? So first of all, I've been doing quite a lot of mentoring, and I usually start with the fact that people are saying that I'm not a good developer, so I cannot be on it.   00;07;45;25 - 00;08;09;07 You couldn't be more wrong because it is not about developers. It's about all kind of skill sets that you need. Developer is just one of these personas, but there's so many other skill sets that are needed in the area. So it doesn't mean if you don't like to be a developer and if you don't like programing, it doesn't mean that it's not for you because there's so many other things.   00;08;09;09 - 00;08;33;23 And I think the biggest challenge is that if if you are able to see a big picture, it's not just, you know, small, tiny details, but big pictures, you would be very welcome to it because we need people with that skill, you know, understanding. What is the big picture here? What are we trying to do? And then we have a lot of people who know the details and they are very much needed.   00;08;33;25 - 00;08;56;28 But we don't have enough people who can see big pictures. And I have so far experience that women are actually quite good in that, you know, they are raising families with a lot of children and husband and everything. And so many things are happening. And you still have to hold that project going on. So the family still has to be doing well and everything should be fine.   00;08;57;04 - 00;09;22;01 So a lot of these women are very good with big pictures and coordinating things. And I think that is the skill set that is definitely needed on it. So if you think you are not a developer, it does not mean that you are not welcome to it. There are other positions as well. A lot of that. I suppose that leads me on to the female voice in a I.   00;09;22;03 - 00;09;50;04 Obviously we think it's important to encourage girls to move into technology and learn more about us. And how important do you think it is to have a female voice, so to speak, in AI in the future? So, you know, everybody is the same and everybody thinks the same. We will have no improvements in anywhere, so we should have different kind of people who are thinking differently and seeing different things so that we can improve whatever the area is.   00;09;50;04 - 00;10;18;00 And the same goes with AI and data and all this kind of things. So we should have different people who see things differently and that's why we should have a lot of different voices to to make the field better. But also, if I think about ladies in general, I think the problem is that we are we have t

In this episode host Oracle Academy manager Tyra Peirce speaks with Mary Olson Industry Executive Director, Education at Oracle. Tyra and Mary speak about the ethics of AI in education and give practical advice on how to best use the technology while avoiding common pitfalls.   --------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00;00;00;00 - 00;00;35;01 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the Future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy TED Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.   00;00;35;03 - 00;01;02;08 I'm your host, Tyra Pierce. In this episode, I'm joined by Mary Olson, executive Director, education at Oracle. Mary and I speak about the ethics of AI in education across multiple fronts administrative, academic and research. A little bit about my guest. For over 30 years, Mary has been using the latest technology to drive innovation and the education system. Welcome, Mary.   00;01;02;11 - 00;01;26;07 thanks, Tyra. I'm really happy to be here. So to start off, can you give me a little bit about your background at Oracle? Sure. I can tell you a little bit about that. I actually have a fairly short tenure at Oracle. I was recruited about a little over three years ago to lead the voice of the customer strategy for Oracle from A higher education perspective.   00;01;26;09 - 00;01;49;01 And I, I feel like I'm returning to my roots because I spent about 30 years at IBM before coming to Oracle. And my favorite job there was leading our education for North America. So I feel like I'm back home. I know today you're talking about A.I., and so let's kind of get a little bit more into AI. AI's constantly changing.   00;01;49;02 - 00;02;12;24 What are some of the ways you've seen AI used in education? well, you know, it is constantly changing and  it's kind of funny because people think about it. You hear about it now a lot and they think it's new. Well, it's not new. It's been around for a really, really long time that the use cases are expanding and they're coming out in exciting new ways.   00;02;12;27 - 00;02;40;12 So when I think about how higher education and education in general is using AI, they tend to fall into some buckets. One of the buckets is streamlining the administrative processes and basically the running of the institution because face it, a university era or a school district is a business. They have to hire people, pay people, report their finances, do all kinds of reporting.   00;02;40;12 - 00;03;18;05 So there are a number of use cases around changing the way the institution is run. And that's that's probably the most significant use cases right now. They're also moving into research. So we see a lot of cases where researchers are really accelerating their discoveries wildfire research, cancer research, drug discovery, everything by using the generative and the analytical tools, machine learning tools that come with AI.   00;03;18;08 - 00;03;42;02 And so that's a really growing area. Another area that's kind of unique and that I'm finding more attention to these days is in providing students with services. So whether it's trying to help them with career guidance, what do they want to do after they graduate? Maybe help them write their resumes and polish those up? We're seeing a lot of applications there.   00;03;42;04 - 00;04;14;03 Another area that I think is kind of fun is helping to make it easier to actually teach. So we're developing use cases where they're a teaching assistant or a tutor that can help the professor actually answer questions for students. And there's a lot of applicability there. And probably I think one of the most surprising is it was two weeks ago I was reading in the San Francisco Chronicle and there was an article on how A.I. is disrupting the college admissions process.   00;04;14;06 - 00;04;37;11 And there's you know, it's actually kind of a big business to for parents often paying to help their students get into the right colleges with the college application process. And there are a number of startups out there that are saying, hey, don't pay this company a couple thousand dollars to get your students application filled out. Use our generative AI tools for free.   00;04;37;13 - 00;05;10;03 And when I looked at that article, I thought, you know, some people are saying you really shouldn't be doing that. But the California University of California has a statement of application integrity when you apply. And they're now actually saying that it is okay to use generative AI in your application process, provided it's used responsibly and ethically. Use it for content editing, for readability to make it, use it as a tool like it was designed to.   00;05;10;05 - 00;05;38;16 But they draw the line at actually plagiarism and just using it to write the product. So they say if they come back and they find out that you just used it to write the product, the application, then they will take action on that. That is so interesting for me. It's like when and I wonder, as I'm sure as we're getting out there and further, there are going to be ways to actually measure the tools in terms of like, are you creating a product or are you editing and, and things along those lines?   00;05;38;16 - 00;06;01;16 I think that that is just as you were telling me this, I was like, that is really fascinating that they're okay with it and they are disrupting that industry because what's the line of written by the code or written by you? And I'm glad that they're able to kind of to kind of take a look at that, which leads me into my next question.   00;06;01;18 - 00;06;26;11 What are your thoughts on faculty using AI in the classroom for teaching and learning? Well, I have some pretty strong opinions on that. So what I really think is that I go back to when calculators first came out and the faculty, a lot of people, a lot of teachers did not want their students using calculators because they thought they wouldn't learn the concepts of math behind that.   00;06;26;14 - 00;06;46;03 And so they were banned in a number of classrooms. But then, you know, the more they started to use it, the more they started to innovate with it. They learned how they could use the tool effectively. They could still teach the math concepts, but they could use the calculator to really accelerate the students learning and take some of the drudgery out of it.   00;06;46;05 - 00;07;09;11 I think we're going to see I used the same way. And to do that, though, I think if you're a teacher, what you need to do is you really need to understand how A.I. affects the subject you're teaching. So, for example, if you are teaching Python programing, you know you're in computer science, you're teaching Python. How can I help with that?   00;07;09;12 - 00;07;37;05 Well, I could just plain flat write the code, which happens in a lot of cases, or it can help maybe with debugging the code. And so if I were teaching Python, what I would do is I would have my students write their code, debug it, experienced the pain and agony of debugging it, and then run it through the generative tool to bring the original set of code through it to see how it debugs it and how much more effective that is.   00;07;37;08 - 00;07;58;11 And I would do that and make sure that I also included some failures. So I think it's important for them to know that just because generative AI may be writes the Python code, it doesn't mean it's perfect. You are still responsible, you still have to check it. And so I would be sure that there are some failures and ways that they can spot that.   00;07;58;13 - 00;08;28;24 And to do that, you know, just my advice to to instructors is experiment. Experiment with your own use cases. Have a couple of thoughts. I think of like I think of like my background is in is in writing and I think of, you know, a lot of times today especially I had a friend a few years ago that was an English professor at a community college, and she would talk about getting papers in where people are writing with emojis or writing with like text slang.   00;08;28;24 - 00;08;50;16 And so I think that this will help immensely. So, I mean, if you're not going in and plagiarizing, you're actually giving input there to see how writing should be done appropriately as opposed to not giving out what the saying L.O.L or TGIF or what have you. I think that that will help so they can kind of see what a structure supposed to look like.   00;08;50;19 - 00;09;14;24 The other thing that I think about with what you just mentioned is when I'm writing a Python code or a Java code or a database code, you're going to be if the AI is programed correctly, the app is learning correctly, you're going to avoid some of the pitfalls of security. Like I always think of sql injectors. I remember many years ago talking to some Oracle database expert about SQL injectors and learning how to code more securely.   00;09;14;26 - 00;09;36;14 And I think that this will kind of alleviate some of those and address those concerns as you're writing that code that it's automatically going to be coding more securely. Yes, it can definitely do that. And when you were talking about that, that also reminds me it can either of a professor who was telling me that he did have his student run the Python code through.   00;09;36;16 - 00;10;01;01 And what happened is he saw there's this moment where she wrote the code. She you know, she did that, but she didn't really understand it. And when it came out through the AI engine optimization and stuff, she said, now I get what we're trying to do. So it's a different way to tell. And just like your example of writing, you see good examples.   00;

In this episode, I’m joined by Cathye Pendley an Oracle Ace and Business Intelligence expert. Cathye and I talk about all things Business Intelligence or BI. We talk about what BI is, and the skills students need to pursue a career in BI. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;34;22  Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the Future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.     00;00;34;23 - 00;01;02;10  I'm your host here appears in this episode. I'm joined by Kathy Pendley, an Oracle AI's director and business intelligence expert. Kathy and I talk about all things business, intelligence or buy. We talk about what the AI is and the skills students need to prove and see. You'll see where I get messed up and I start over. So in this episode, I'm joined by Kathy Penley, an oracle AI's director and business intelligence expert.     00;01;02;13 - 00;01;29;01  Kathy and I talk about all things business, intelligence, RBI. We talk about what be AI is and the skills students need to pursue a career in by. A little bit about my guest. Kathy is a business intelligence program director at Roseann and has 30 years of experience working with Business Intelligence analytics technologies. She brings strong project management skills and a clear methodology focus to each project.     00;01;29;04 - 00;02;02;05  Kathy has rounded experience in all areas of business, intelligence and analytics, including product project management. Sara backed up their project management of analytics projects to valuations and selection for business intelligence tools, analysis, design, development and implementation of analytics solutions. And she has developed both large and small analytic application patterns and systems. Welcome, Kathy. So to start off, can you please tell me a bit about your background and your job role?     00;02;02;07 - 00;02;41;05  I am a 1992 graduate of the University of North Texas. I have a B.A. in business computer systems, and it's very similar to what most colleges would call a BBA and management information systems. I currently am a business intelligence program manager at ROSENSCHEIN, and I've been there for about a year and a half. I focused at and is to understand the nature of our business and the latest technology and then determine how the technology can best assist our businesses and make informed decisions.     00;02;41;07 - 00;03;09;12  My professional career has been focused on business intelligence. Some call it decision support back 30 years ago are you might call it also analytics today. So it has many different names, but it has been in the business intelligence area. I work for Rosatom, which is an electrical contracting company. The majority of my career it's been in consulting, focused on analytics and beer across many industries.     00;03;09;12 - 00;03;40;11  So I have experience in many industries. I would say all but about four years of my professional career has been in consulting. That is quite background. You are an expert in business intelligence. So to start off, can you give me a high level overview of business intelligence or buy business intelligence and B, I can be thought of as a superpower of turning data into actionable insights that drive better business decisions.     00;03;40;13 - 00;04;06;23  It's not just about collecting and storing information, but analyzing it in a meaningful way to understand your business performance, identify trends and make informed choices. The steps to do that. The first step in be AI is to understand your business needs. You need to know what is important to the business, and then you can start gathering the data.     00;04;06;25 - 00;04;32;09  So what kind of data do you get and buy? You can have what we call internal or external data. Internal data is something that is within your company. Like sales could be payroll, could be h.r. An external data is something that you're getting external from your company. That's like social media, maybe even weather data. And then there are also different types of data.     00;04;32;11 - 00;04;57;07  You have a structured data that sits within a database, and that's something that you'll hear where you put them in tables and you join your tables together. But then there's also unstructured data, and that's like text documents, emails. Those are kind of some unstructured data where it can be in any type of format. Now you can do your analysis in an Excel spreadsheet.     00;04;57;09 - 00;05;23;21  And and that's okay for small individual type analytics, but for more complex enterprise wide analytics, something that you're going to push out to your entire company, it's best to create a model. And a common model that is used is a star schema. And all star schema is is just some tables joined together and you have what you call a fact table.     00;05;23;23 - 00;05;45;20  A fact table is nothing more than something that has a fat sales productive. What what is the key metric that you're looking at? Then you have your dimension tables and that's basically how you want to break out your data. So you're going to break it out by time or by location. You have a dimension table for each one of those with the attributes by those dimensions.     00;05;45;23 - 00;06;10;17  A good way to think about a dimension tables. If you're looking at something and you all look at sales and you want to see it by somebody says, I want to see it by product, by time, by location. Anything after the buy is going to be a dimension, a location dimension, a time dimension, a product dimension. So that's how you kind of build a model amongst the model is designed and built.     00;06;10;19 - 00;06;34;02  You need to then load it with data and put data into the model, and that is called data preparation. Some people call it ETL, some people call it BLT, but basically that's where you go in and you clean the data, get it organized, and you loaded into the model. This can be a long process. Once it's in the model, now you can start doing your data analysis.     00;06;34;04 - 00;07;02;05  There's various tools and techniques for years to analyze the data once it's in the model. This kind of generating report, creating dashboards, performing calculations are using data visualization techniques like charts and graphs. You get that built. Then you can start looking at the actionable insights. This this is where you have the analysis. It reveals pattern trends, hidden information that helps business understand what's working and what's not.     00;07;02;07 - 00;07;29;00  This knowledge is being translated into actionable recommendations that can be implemented and improve performance. As you look at this, we talk about building this and building the chart data visualization, don't underestimate it. There are classes. There are books. If you are going to be working with the users and working in building analysis, understand and learn a little bit about data visualization.     00;07;29;08 - 00;07;56;27  A quick note is people read left, right, top to bottom. So whenever somebody looks at a dashboard, the first place they look is in the upper left hand corner, their eyes drawn up there. So you would want to put your key metric in the upper left hand corner of the dashboard that makes it stands out that allows your executives to quickly get the information without having to spend too much time digging through tables to get it.     00;07;56;29 - 00;08;23;26  I had actually never looked at it that way. That's really insightful. I just had an moment thinking about the tables and graphs and charts that I built that I was really a wonderful nugget that you just gave. So now on to my next question. What are some of the different industries that are used by different industries for actually every industry and every department within industry uses by for example, you have your construction things.     00;08;23;26 - 00;08;54;02  COLONISTS All right, look out. I'll go a little, maybe a little bit more about install rates. Retail has sales and inventory, higher education. They're looking at enrollments and salting my look at staffing. But then even departments in these industries like your h.r. Might be looking at the retention of employees, and that would be across all industries. So there is pretty much within every organization, within every department, in every industry.     00;08;54;05 - 00;09;24;08  I'd like to go over a couple of examples of how it's used differently at a couple of organizations. I want to start with the construction installer right? This is a metric that many construction companies use to determine how long it's going to take to install a particular product. Say, for example, a conduit in our electrical contracting company, we have conduits and we have an estimated rate of say, 5.2, five feet per hour.     00;09;24;10 - 00;09;43;09  And that is saying that an individual, a worker should be able to install 5.5 feet of conduit in the hour. So what happens when a given project goes down to five feet per hour? And that's just a reduction of about 10%. Not horrible, right.     00;09;43;11 - 00;10;11;22  Talking about multiple projects that we have with hundreds of people working on these projects and this rate starts going down. If you had to put in 2.1 straight, the conduit at a rate of about $50 per hour, the cost alone at 5.2, five feet per hour is $20 million. If you go down to five feet, that could cost you $1,000,000.     00;10;11;25 - 00;10;35;01  Just in revenue. And then if you ever to take into consideration if you're if you're not installing as fast,

Oracle Academy is Oracle’s philanthropic education program. In this episode we chat with Alice Goodchild, Head of Oracle Women’s Leadership for Europe, Middle East and Africa.  She shares her views on how to inspire girls and women to follow STEM studies and careers, why we need more women in tech, how diverse talent is important to the economy and IT and how Oracle is investing in developing, engaging and empowering current and future generations of women leaders at Oracle. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;09;03 - 00;00;28;02 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders. Of the Future. Let's get started.   00;00;28;05 - 00;00;54;27 Welcome to Oracle Academy, pictured where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare a next generation workforce. I'm your host to Oracle Academy Program manager for Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Albania. Crushed by North Macedonia cluster in just a few days. We are celebrating International Women's Day, but numbers don't lie. And that is definitely true when it comes to the number of women in tech.   00;00;54;29 - 00;01;25;05 Globally, we see a low percentage of women selecting STEM studies and the percentage drops when it comes to the actual number of women graduating, women entering the market, climbing the hierarchy ladder and becoming tech leaders. How can a company like our approach help women develop their leadership and skills? My guest today is Alice Goodchild, head of Oracle Women's Program for Europe, Middle East and Africa.   00;01;25;08 - 00;01;47;00 Alice joined Oracle seven years ago with more than 15 years work and experience as a senior aides or business partner in companies of the IP and investment banking sectors and is currently based in UK but has a long living and working experience in countries like Japan, France, Spain and Australia. Alice, welcome.   00;01;47;02 - 00;01;50;15 Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me to join you today.   00;01;50;17 - 00;01;55;21 Thank you. Please give our audience a bit of out of your background, then your role at Oracle.   00;01;55;24 - 00;02;27;09 Absolutely. Thank you. So I am the head of Oracle Women's Leadership for the Europe, Middle East and Africa Region, a hugely diverse region with over 50 countries represented at Oracle and Oracle women's leadership. Well, it started as a grassroots initiative in 2006 and has now grown organically into a global strategic program dedicated to the leadership and professional development of Oracle women across the world.   00;02;27;12 - 00;02;59;23 And we started off with a few communities in certain countries, and now we have over 120 Oracle women's leadership communities across the globe, which is quite incredible. And in AMEA, the region I represent and we have 40 communities across 35 countries. And in terms of our team structure, we are a global team of eight. And we also have an executive steering committee for Oracle Women's Leadership.   00;02;59;23 - 00;03;26;11 So we have very strong support from our senior leaders. And I remember when I saw this role advertised, I was working as a business partner in a telco organization and I saw the role and I was like, I can't believe they've got a program dedicated to Oracle or to women's leadership. And I honestly think that I've got the best job at Oracle.   00;03;26;11 - 00;03;29;29 So that's a bit of my background for you.   00;03;30;01 - 00;04;00;03 I have to say that Oracle is one of the leading IP companies that they invest a lot in, in diversity and inclusion and of course in the women's development program. But if we want to go a bit back, how would we attract more women and girls to to study STEM subjects and to pursue careers in the technology industry?   00;04;00;06 - 00;04;20;13 Great question. I think there are a number of different ways in which we could do that, but I think I'm going to focus just on a couple of them, if that's okay. And I think for me, the first the first way that we could could attract more women and girls to study STEM subjects is through more. Having more role models.   00;04;20;13 - 00;04;47;25 And I guess if I take girls first and we can talk about role models, but they could be in terms of, you know, the school children, in terms of toys or books or literature, you know, making sure that there are resources for young children to show that there you know, there are roles and opportunities and leaders for you know, for women.   00;04;47;27 - 00;05;24;28 I think that's really important. And we we need to think about all curriculums across the globe as well. So to have a broader digital curriculum, which is relevant to everybody and I think also for girls in in particular, it's very important to show that there's such a, you know, there is such a huge variety in tech jobs. So and it could yes, it could be coding, but it also there are, you know, user experience or, you know, lots of different roles within tech that mean a different different skill sets could be used.   00;05;24;28 - 00;05;59;19 So actually an ad or at Oracle, we have a program, a Spanish Oracle women's leadership team have created Oracle for Girls. So that's really about getting girls aged 4 to 16 really excited about the cool technology that there is and building kind of a sense of community amongst those girls that, you know, and seeing these role models that they can consider that tech might be somewhere where they would want to explore further with their studies as they get older.   00;05;59;22 - 00;06;36;14 And then I think role models, you know, from a from an organizational point of view, I wonder many of the people listening might have heard of the term the only. But there are so many examples where women are still the only woman in their team, in their company, potentially in their organizations, or part of a project team. So it's it's it's really, you know, for those women in particular that serve all women, it's really important to have role models in the organizations to be able to see someone who looks like you.   00;06;36;14 - 00;07;04;03 That's been successful, that's faced different challenges. But you know that, you know, you can progress and will be supported and have the right environment to progress within that particular organization and have the right culture to enable you to do that. And that comes down also to organizations having the right policies and practices really to ensure that their, you know, their environments are inclusive.   00;07;04;05 - 00;07;37;29 And I think you know, tying in to this as well is this sense of fostering a community and belonging and community is extremely important in terms of attracting anyone to to work for organizations or to study particular subjects and enabling a culture, an environment of belonging is really important to attracting more women and girls to study and to pursue careers in the I.T. industry.   00;07;38;02 - 00;07;52;15 So talking about the community and ecosystems, corporate ecosystems, why do we need more women than we think need this approach?   00;07;52;17 - 00;08;20;10 Well, you know, Eleanor, I think, you know, overall, we need more people in tech, as you outlined at the beginning, this massive skills shortages and the tech industry is shaping our world and shaping the future. So, you know, we really need to think about that. But the as we know, the proportion of women working in technologies is going, moving, increasing, but at a very glacial pace.   00;08;20;10 - 00;08;50;09 So we do we do really need to consider how to get more women into tech. I had I read the other day a recent report published in the UK by the Professional body for computing, and it said it was going to take 283 years before women make up an equal share of the workforce in the UK. And we need the gender gap in I.T. to close much more quickly.   00;08;50;12 - 00;09;20;09 The pace of technology, the pace of change. We we just can't be moving that slowly. So I think, you know, for organizations, we need our emerging tech like artificial intelligence to reflect the society that we that we live in. And we you know, the tech helps our industry innovate and rise to the needs of society in a meaningful and responsible way.   00;09;20;11 - 00;09;59;20 So and I think for for women, it's really important. The tech tech, there are brilliant career opportunities in the tech industry and we need women in the and much more kind of diverse employee bases to bring different perspectives to help teams work differently, to empower them to solve problems differently. And, you know, we need it's all about kind of ensuring that our workforce and our people with expertise are reflective of the societies that we live in today.   00;09;59;20 - 00;10;12;07 And there are 51% of women across the globe so that, you know, we should we should be reflecting their needs in the tech industry because that is what's shaping our future.   00;10;12;09 - 00;10;37;29 So being already almost seven years with our women's leadership and talking about the need for the community and for the things and for the companies, what would you say are the benefits of having a strategic program like Oracle Women's Leadership.   00;10;38;02 - 00;11;17;11 That many benefits actually. And I think if I start from the level of business support. So as you mentioned, this is a strategic program and we have buy in from all CEOs, suffocates and active support of our senior executives and the impact of that on the organization is is critical because it demonstrates that our leadership teams are invested in increasing the diversity and inclusion of our organization and creating an environment where everybody can belong.   00;11;17;14 - 00;11;53;03 And when you create that environme