Stories by Sheila Lam

Big data for IT forensics

One of the earlier business applications to analyze massive volume of data from a variety of sources is IT forensics. Besides using traditional eDiscovery tools to handle unstructured data and analytical tools to analyze transactional data separately, IT forensic experts are turning towards big data for a comprehensive approach to speed up analysis.

Written by Sheila Lam06 Aug. 13 18:28

How do you work with a tight budget?

No matter what the size of your company, there is always a budget constraint in running IT. But no one knows it better than André Mendes, CIO of Special Olympics International (SOI). The non-profit organisation, which aims to empower people with disabilities, ran the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai in October.
How different is it to run IT in a non-profit organisation?

Written by Sheila Lam07 Jan. 08 22:00

The bits and bytes of Beijing’s Olympic Games build up

The world's attention will focus on Beijing over the next 12 months in the lead up to the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The city is busily finishing the construction of the major event venues, like the Bird's Nest and Water Cube, where the opening ceremony and swimming events will be showcased. While the Chinese capital is developing trendy and high-tech building architecture, the IT infrastructure that will support the world's greatest sporting event is being based on more conservative and established systems.
Wireless networks, radio frequency identification (RFID) and biometric scans may not be dominant, but, according to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) and its hardware supplier Lenovo, reliability has a far higher priority than cutting-edge technologies. As the world turns its attention towards next year's staging of more than 300 different events, all happening within 17 days, the IT systems that support the 2008 Olympics cannot afford any failure nor downtime, notes Hou Xinyi, deputy director, technology department of BOCOG.

Written by Sheila Lam12 Oct. 07 21:00

A juggling act

Managing an IT shop is a tough-enough job as it is, but many CIOs are fascinated with additional responsibilities. Apart from the temptation of a bigger and fatter pay packet, why would IT executives take on more jobs?
Necessity, job satisfaction and the chance to experience 'the other side' were some of the reasons IT executives gave for accepting multiple roles.

Written by Sheila Lam26 July 07 22:00

Case Study: RFID at Philips: tagged and tracked

Despite extensive media coverage of RFID, there seems to have been more noise than actual implementation. But recently we've seen a solid case study here in Hong Kong.
Royal Philips Electronics last month unveiled its RFID implementation, known as the STAR Project. Using RFID, Philips is able to tag and track goods between its manufacturing facility in Kaoshiung, Taiwan and its Asia-Pacific distribution center in Hong Kong.

Written by Sheila Lam11 April 05 22:00