Well-designed Technology for Humans isn’t like Magic, it is Magic: Sajan Pillai

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Sajan Pillai, the CEO of UST Global, opened this year’s D3, UST Global’s annual developer conference, with an inspiring keynote.

Speaking about ‘Interfaces’, the theme of this year’s D3 event, and the future of technology Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI), Sajan Pillai said, “Experience, not technology capabilities, made the internet what it is today. Experience also means we need to change the approach to problem solving. To enhance the experience, one must understand the people, and for that, one must understand their ‘motivation’. Newer technologies like Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Voice Recognition will be key to improve productivity even further.”

Quoting examples of how Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) can be implemented in various industries, Sajan shared an example of an interesting innovative project the company did for a Healthcare client. He added, “Gesture recognition and thought control technologies have massive implications for senior care and healthcare, and we have done this for one of our clients.”

UST Global already has a design-first methodology to use HMI for ‘Design for Happiness’. The methodology utilizes human-centered design as the foundation stone to solve business challenges, applies Anthropology to help find customer pain points, understand end-user problems, and change those pain points into bliss points in straight 6 weeks. This is the first time any organization has used Anthropology to solve business problems.

Sajan emphasized the importance of creating an ecosystem for innovation, “To leverage the power of Human-Machine experience, we will do more. We will change the ecosystem with innovative partners and startups, academic collaboration and an in-house human-machine interface incubators.”

Further speaking about the ecosystem and the start-up community around the world, he added, “The next-generation start-ups will be ‘experience’ companies, and will provide experience-based deliveries.” Sajan truly believes that UST Global has an incredible opportunity to bridge the gap between what humans can do and what machines can do, by complementing each other’s strengths and limitations. After Sajan’s keynote, the audience witnessed the guest keynote of the day by eminent futurist and digital strategist Gerd Leonhard.

Speaking on the power of technology, Gerd Leonhard said, “The world will change in the next 20 years, and that will be more than what it has changed in the past 300 years. The biggest shift will be the Interfaces. Digital technology companies like UST Global have a massive opportunity in the coming years. Our future is better than we think. We should harness the power of technology, not stop them. Today, Data is the new oil, AI is the new electricity and IoT is the new nervous system.”

D3 (Dream Develop Disrupt) is UST Global’s developer conference where the brightest minds in the company meet, learn, and develop their digital skills. This is the third annual edition and the theme this year is Interfaces.