The ICT sector is playing a key role in the shift towards a more sustainable economy and society, one that goes beyond simply using green energy in the large datacenters. On the one hand is the challenge of delivering extremely energy-efficient ICT infrastructure; on the other, many sectors rely on the right ICT infrastructure to manage their energy supply for their industrial processes more economically. Thanks to the right ICT support, more and more end users are able to manage their carbon footprint as well. Read more
Archive: Knowledge | Column
Column
Monday October 3rd, 2011The more ICT, the more flowers
By Peter Hinssen
After Al Gore’s ‘An inconvenient truth’, the world was never quite the same. We are much more aware, these days, of the way we use our limited energy supplies, and we’re quicker to turn off lights, choose energyefficient and CO2-friendly cars, and install solar panels and insulation. Read more
Column
Thursday June 2nd, 2011Should we take the risk?
by Bart Preneel
Humans are notoriously bad at making risk decisions. We tend to overestimate large spectacular risks (think plane crashes) and risks caused by intentional actions (think terrorist attacks); on the other hand, we under-react to mundane risks such as bicycle accidents and natural phenomena such as floods. We also tend to underestimate large long-term risks, in particular if things change slowly but steadily. Read more
Column
Monday May 16th, 2011Tinkering culture
By Peter Hinssen
I was recently visiting one of the largest healthcare insurers in the Netherlands. Now, the Dutch healthcare market works completely differently from ours, but it was fascinating to see the way that their focus is shifting from ’sickness’ to ‘health’. The big buzzword for our northern neighbors right now is ‘end-to-end’. Read more
Column
Wednesday February 16th, 2011Entrepreneurship = business agility
By Ivan Van de Cloot
The business world is much more volatile than other sectors of society. In Belgium, one year after start-up, 80% of new companies are still in existence. After three years, the figure is just 65%. The life of an entrepreneur is full of uncertainty. Taking risks – calculated risks – is inherent to doing business. It’s not always easy to accept this, however. Frequently, those outside of the business world also have a very hard time facing up to this reality. Read more
Column
Wednesday February 9th, 2011Ode to the dial tone
By Peter Hinssen
We live in a society that is becoming increasingly digital. We are also becoming ever more dependent on all things digital. Yet we give too little thought to what happens if that digital breaks down. One of the peculiar characteristics of a digital world is that users consider it perfectly normal and self-evident for everything to just work. Read more
Column
Wednesday October 13th, 2010The 129 digit codeword
by Erik Dejonghe
In 1977 Rivest, Shamir and Adleman, three encryption specialists, made a bold statement. 11,438,162,575,788,886,766,923,577, 997,614,661,201,021,829,672,124,236,256,256,184,293,570,693,524, 57,338,978,305,971,23,563,95,705,058,989,075,147,599,290,026, 879,543,541, they said, is not a prime number but the product of two very large primes. Finding those two prime numbers would take the existing computer networks at least 40,000,000,000,000,000 years.
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