Artificial intelligence (AI) took center stage at Source Meridian and Institución Educativa Pascual Bravo’s annual tech conference, TECH SPHERE, this past month.
The conference, recently highlighted by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of its top annual events in Latin America, did not disappoint.
Here are the key takeaways.
The Future of Data
Christian Moreno, Data Engineer Expert at Source Meridian, opened the conference with a talk on the future of data and what we should expect in the years ahead.
The rise of OpenAI since 2023 has given a huge boost for interest in this space.
With GenAI poised to generate a whopping 10% of the world’s data by 2025, the relationship between data and AI has become even more intertwined. Christian provided very needed insight here.
Personalized and intelligent learning: AI as an educational tool
The event transitioned to a panel discussion on AI as an education tool, with some of the city’s leading executives present.
Moderated by Salomé Muriel, speakers included Olga Lucia Quintero (CTO of Pink Technologies), Santiago Jiménez (Al / ML Specialist at IU Pascual Bravo), Camilo Usuga (CTO at Hacer.ai), Rubén Fonnegra (Máster in Automatización and Control at IU Pascual Bravo), and Juan Pablo Ortega (CEO of Tech Innovation Group).
Juan Pablo Ortega was earlier CEO at Ruta N, one of the innovation centers in the city of Medellin.
Freeing time to create value
Óscar Murillo, Project Manager at Source Meridian, then gave an insightful talk about how technology can be used to free time and create value.
According to a Ness-Zinnov Study, GenAI improves software engineering productivity by 70%, freeing up greatly needed time.
AI: when to invest and implement new tech
International healthtech leader Shahir Kassam Adams followed with a talk about AI and when to invest, and do’s and don’ts on implementation.
A co-founder of Veritas Data Research, Shahir is widely regarded as a thought leader in the space.
His company has sourced, collated and indexed publicly available information to build the most complete and timely fact of death solution on the market.
Preparation and response: the key to surviving a cyber attack
Andrés Cajamarca, Director of Engineering at Fortinet Colombia, followed with a talk on how to best address cyber attacks. Cyberattacks have more than doubled since the pandemic.
While companies have historically suffered relatively modest direct losses from cyberattacks, some have experienced a much heavier toll.
US credit reporting agency Equifax, for example, paid more than $1 billion in penalties after a major data breach in 2017 that affected about 150 million consumers.
Beyond trends: tech business landscape in Latam
Mike Hoey (article’s featured photo), CEO and Founder of Source Meridian, was then interviewed on trends impacting Latin America.
As the founder of Source Meridian, a development software company, Mike has over 20 years of extensive experience in IT technologies. He is regarded as one of the region’s most successful entrepreneurs.
Added one of his team members Daniela Gutierrez in an earlier interview, “Once you start in your career, if you have the opportunity to take on a Mentor, take advantage of it. Without a doubt, this is one of the things that has helped me the most in my professional career because I have been able to count on an excellent Mentor like Mike Hoey.”
The event concluded with a talk on transforming companies with AI: Automation, optimization and disruptive business models
Moderated by Sarah Valencia of Forbes, the session included Felipe Monsalve (Co-Founder of Palomma), Mateo Folador (Founder of Hola Amigo), Hilda Muriel (COO at Pink Technologies), Maryi Carvajal (Sr. Data Researcher at Quipux), and Agostinho Almeida (Chief Innovation Officer at Grupo Energía Bogotá)
Workshops were also help throughout the conference by Google Developer Groups, including “Creating a Generative Artificial Intelligence Product” with Andrés Quintero Bedoya, in addition to the session on “Exploring models for image generation” with AI Linda Gutierrez, Senior Software Engineer at Snappr.
Featured photo of Mike Hoey and Salome Beyer
