Information Technology

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (Key Industry Trend)

• AI is the ability for a computer program to think and learn. The emergence of AI has enabled the rise of self-driving cars, smart homes, advanced search algorithms, and smart digital assistants.

• ML is a specific subset of AI that focuses on developing algorithms allowing systems to learn from data and improve over time without explicit programming

Cloud Computing (Key Industry Trend)

The practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer. More companies are moving to this platform for security, convenience, and cost savings.

Edge Computing (Key Industry Trend)

To reduce latency and enhance real-time processing, edge computing is emerging as a critical solution, enabling devices to process data closer to the source rather than centralized cloud servers.

• Edge computing processes data at or near its source, offering low latency, real-time responses, and reduced bandwidth needs, making it ideal for IoT, autonomous vehicles, and critical applications.

• In contrast, cloud computing centralizes data and computation in remote data centers, providing vast processing power, large-scale storage, and high availability for complex tasks like large-scale AI model training and data analytics.

• These approaches are not mutually exclusive; instead, they are complementary, with hybrid models integrating edge and cloud to achieve both localized performance and centralized power.

Internet of Things (IOT) (Key Industry Trend)

Smart devices that are all connected and communicate with each other via the internet are rising in demand due to the value of strategic data that they provide

Blockchain (Key Industry Trend)

A digital ledger in which transactions made and recorded chronologically and publicly. Important for security and transfer verification purposes. (Ex. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies)

GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation (Key Industry Trend)

Data protection regulation protecting privacy for all individuals in the EU

IP - Intellectual Property (Important Terminology)

A category of property that includes intangible creations protected by trademarks and copyrights (e.g. software, code, algorithms, etc.)

Unicorn (Important Terminology)

A start-up company valued at more than a billion dollars, typically in the software or technology sector (google says privately-held)

Freemium (Important Terminology)

A pricing model used by many digital services, a “freemium” model is one where the majority of users are able to engage with a product or service entirely for free (perhaps in exchange for data collection or being served advertisements)

SaaS - Software as a Service (Important Terminology)

A software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the internet - like Salesforce or Workday

Addressable Market Size (Important Calculations)

Top-Down: Total Population >>> Number of users >>> Market share >>> # of Units per User x Price per Unit

Bottom-Up: Current Customer Population >>> Potential Customer Base (Estimated using consensus data or industry info) >>> Future user base x # of Units per User x Price per Unit

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) (Important Calculations)

CAC = Marketing Expenses / Newly Acquired Customers, Yearly