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Latest Read: Inside Cyber


Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Our Security by Chuck Brooks.

Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, IoT, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Our Security by Chuck Brooks

Chuck holds an MA from the University of Chicago. He serves as President of Brooks Consulting International addressing cybersecurity, emerging technologies and government relations. Chuck also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University in the Cyber Risk Management Program. He has briefed the G20 on energy cybersecurity, served on two National Academy of Science Advisory groups and addressed USTRANSCOM on cybersecurity.

Chuck serves on an industry/government Working group for DHS CISA focused on security space systems. Chuck is also a contributor to Forbes, The Washington Post, Dark Reading, Homeland Security Today, and Security Information Watch.

He is providing readers a roadmap for understanding the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” The book serves as a bridge between complex technical advancements and their practical implications for business, government, and individual privacy.

Readers will learn that society is entering a new state of ”cyberflux” where digital and physical (analog) worlds are rapidly converging. This has created new vulnerabilities yet also new opportunities. He reveals AI, 5G, and related tools offer enhanced efficiencies, empowering new business models that offer new innovations across finance, healthcare, transportation, and government. He is focusing on what they do and why they matter rather than jumping into technological formulas or programming code.

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Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Feature Engineering Bookcamp


Feature Engineering Bookcamp by Sinan Ozdemir.

Feature Engineering Bookcamp by Sinan Özdemir

Sinan holds both a BA and MA in Pure Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. His graduate work focused on algebraic geometry with applications to cybersecurity. He was Founder and CTO of Kylie.ai and Legion Analytics. Today Sinan is the Founder and CTO of LoopGenius. He is also a former Lecturer/Adjunct Professor, teaching graduate-level Business Analytics, Mathematics, and Computer Science.

Sinan is addressing a very critical, yet often overlooked stage of machine learning pipelines. A transformation of raw data into informative features will make or break your efforts. He is advocating the quality of the input data is the true measurement for any model’s performance.

He is presenting to readers six hands-on projects to upgrade your training data using feature engineering. This “Bookcamp” thereby prioritizes project-based curriculum over theory since structures the text is the true craft for data scientists. Instead of focusing on mathematical transformations, Sinan asks the reader to solve business problems, such as predicting flight delays.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Tor

Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy by Ben Collier.

Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy by Ben Collier

Ben holds a MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Criminology from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. He is a Cambridge Cybercrime Centre postdoctoral researcher and long-term collaborator with this interdisciplinary center, focusing on online hacker communities and cybercrime markets. Today he is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Methods at the University of Edinburgh within the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies (STIS).

The Dark Web is a subset of the internet that was designed to be hidden from search engines and requires specific software, like Tor. Well known for illegal marketplaces (Silk Road) for drugs, firearms, murder for hire, stolen data, selling breached data, and hacking services, yet in fact is also serving as a privacy resource. Here forums allow users to exchange data regarding whistleblower platforms and also permits journalists to communicate in countries with strict censorship.

Insert irony: the very markets trafficking in illicit goods today rely on a architecture engineered by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

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Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Deep Reinforcement Learning


Deep Reinforcement Learning in Action by Alexander Zai.

Deep Reinforcement Learning in Action by Alexander Zai

Alex holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)., where he graduated in 2014. He co-founded Codesmith and led its Data Science and Machine Learning research group. He has also been involved in advancing TensorFlow.js, focusing on enabling browser-level deep learning and computer vision applications. Today Alex is a Machine Learning Engineer at Amazon AI.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is certainly one of the most intellectually demanding subfields of Machine Learning. Alex takes a very pragmatic approach by writing this book for the developer who wants to understand the “why” engaging with the “how.” He is utilizing PyTorch as the vehicle, providing a clean, Python interface to very complex algorithms.

Humans learn best from feedback. We are encouraged to take actions that lead to positive results. This reinforcement is applied to computer programs allowing them to solve more complex problems. Deep Reinforcement Learning in Action teaches readers how to program AI agents that adapt and improve based on direct feedback from their environment.

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Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Change

Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times by John P. Kotter.

Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times by John P. Kotter

John holds a MS from the MIT and PhD in Business Administration (DBA) from Harvard. He has been a long tenured professor at HBS. He co-founded Kotter International, his leadership and strategy implementation firm. Leading Change published in 1996 was named one of the most influential business books of all time by Time Magazine.

While John introduced Leading Change in 1996, this book is moving the reader to accept our the world has moved from episodic change to a state of permanent, volatile flux. This falls into perfect alignment with modern IT’s Continuous Delivery.

The focus is on behavioral science, the barrier to organizational change is not bad management, but human nature. As a result, John presents two distinct “channels” for organizations. The Survive Channel: Triggered by threats is reactionary and negatively increasing anxiety. A Thrive Channel: Triggered by opportunities will drive curiosity, collaboration, and creativity. Yet John is outlining modern corporate KPIs and quarterly targets are shutting down innovations organizations need today in order to to stay relevant.

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