Outsourcing Conference 2014

But what is a crucial incident in one shot? It is not necessarily a dramatic situation as a major natural disaster, a serious accident, a medical incident, but an unusual or difficult situation, an event that requires human intervention, and relevant responsiveness. From Constantine Kalentis speech at Outsourcing Conference 2014. Topic: Strategic Planning with the use of Artificial Intelligence.

Bhimani on Internet Security

Anish Bhimani is the Managing Director and Chief Information Risk Officer of JP Morgan Chase. In this role he has global responsibility for ensuring the security, controls and resiliency of the firm's technology environment. It is always a pleasure to learn about future trends and challenges in security and privacy, in such a relaxed speech!

The critical factors for sustainable development

For some time now, an intense debate in Greece and the European Union has broken out, regarding the sustainable development model in relation to the proposed agenda. But it is clear by all sides that any development model cannot be sustainable when you disregard, science and technology. 

Through the use of the appropriate, modern technologies, sciences, structures and human resources, and when you ensure access especially in sensitive social groups, you have good chances to fulfill the main criterion to improve the living standards of your country. Moreover, the society as a whole enjoys the benefits of tiered productivity increase and thus by increasing the disposable income of a country.

Source: Article by Constantine Kalentis in Greek for apopseis.gr. The full article can be found in Greek here  

Information Technology, Innovation and the Insurance Industry

The "evangelists" of new technologies often overemphasize extremely high cost solutions, without understanding the economic facts and the specific requirements of each industry.

The insurance industry faces significant challenges due to the competitive environment, and the fluid regulatory and legislative framework.

Probably not everyone understands the core message, deciphering the deeper meaning of using technology with particular reference to business innovation.

Source: Article published by Constantine Kalentis at Insurance World Magazine, October 2013 Issue.

Leak of Confidential Information

The main advantage of social engineering techniques is that they can easily bypass any technological investment. The social engineering has proven to be a very effective way of penetration in an organization. 

Source: Article published by Constantine Kalentis at Communication Solutions Magazine Issue 83

Modern war tactics

As US troops get ready for a possible military intervention in Syria, it is worthwhile to keep an eye on the asymmetries of modern war tactics. At the same time pro-Syrian hackers brought down the website of the New York Times, and crippled that of Twitter, causing it to appear incorrectly.

By bringing down high profile U.S. websites the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) can surely affect how the U.S. response is perceived, both domestically and overseas.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Technology and the Minoans

If technology is the making, modification, usage and knowledge of tools, machines techniques, crafts, systems and methods in order to solve a problem, as Wikipedia explains the term, then Minoans were pretty much beyond their own era.

It is true that before Arthur Evans, other archaeologists have only scratched the surface. The ancient Minoan civilization (27^th Century BCE – 15^th Century BCE), free from outside influences, have been a pioneer civilization that first understood the true meaning of technology. Evidence on ancient Minoans makes us understand much better that many areas have been using thousands of years ago advanced building materials such as sun dried bricks that most houses were made from, timber and stone and clay, all native building materials and transformed them in a magnificent way.

The excavated remaining suggest that usual homes were “Villas” with compounds used as storage facilities, Alibaba size storage jars, halls and full of artistic figures and decorations. Thin semi transparent alabaster has been used in the windows, which allowed light into the rooms.

Europe’s first precision main road has been established near Knossos. Also other masterpieces of urban design can be found in Knossos. Grand houses with hinged doors, drainage systems, flushed toilets and floors covered with limestone. Limestone today is used in many building projects around the world. The Kingdom itself was three times the size of the Buckingham palace.

The Minoans were the first civilization to use underground clay pipes for sanitation and water supply – 1500 years before the Romans. 

The drainage and the water supply was bringing clean water, taking out waste water and storm sewerage canals for flow off of excessive rain. In order to transport water they used channels, clay pipes and aqueducts.

Not just the palace but ordinary houses were heated with sophisticated holocaust systems, where heat was conducted with the use of the heated chamber under the floor, the earliest known to exist in the history of the world.

In order to use stone Minoans prepared stonework from any type of stone. Even the well known painted columns in the site of Knossos were designed in an alternative way, unlike any other Greek and Roman columns tapered at the top. Light wells allowed into upper and lower rooms.

And these are just few of the in house innovations and achievements of the Minoan civilization of Crete. You can check out this video bellow to find out more about the importance of the Minoan civilization.