The Open Group ‘Digital First’ Virtual Event – April 27-29, 2020 – Highlights Blog

By Loren K. Baynes, Director, Global Marketing Communications, The Open Group

This week marked a first for The Open Group. While our physical conferences and Member Meetings have become the world-class events for which we are known, the health and safety of our staff, Members, and event attendees take priority during these unprecedented times.

As an organization that prides itself on bringing people together globally, this week we hosted our first ever quarterly virtual event, #ogVIRTUAL. In the face of adversity, it was fantastic to see 2,100 attendees from over 90 countries across the world come together virtually to explore the topic of ‘Digital First’.

Day One

To kick things off, Steve Nunn, President and CEO, The Open Group, welcomed Remy Alexander, Director of Global Digital Practice at Philips, to the ‘virtual’ stage. During this presentation, attendees discovered how the IT team at Philips has supported Digital Transformation by building a state-of-the-art IT landscape, enabling multiple business models and methodologies to drive better customer engagement and faster time to market.

Following on from this was an excellent session hosted by Dr. Pallab Saha, Chief Architect (South Asia) at The Open Group. Saha took us through the ‘Digital India’ initiative, including the progress made since it was launched in 2014 and insight into how this has paved the way for even greater changes in years to come.

Dr. Pallab Saha explained how IndEA is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals during #ogVIRTUAL

This was followed by an insightful presentation from David Lounsbury, Chief Technical Officer and VP of Services at The Open Group, which focused on The Digital Practitioner Body of Knowledge™ (DPBoK) Standard. The session addressed how open standards can help organizations target new entrants into the digital workforce, as well as experienced practitioners seeking to update their understanding on how all the various components of digital and IT management fit together in the modern world.

Also announced was the release of the DPBoK Community Edition which is is now open for community contribution as input to the DPBoK Standard. The PDF is available here as well  – DPBoK-CE

On Monday afternoon, presentations continued covering ‘Digital Transformation and the IT4IT™ Standard’ and ‘Digital Management’ included:

  • Scaling Digital Products leveraging DPBoK™ (A Nimbl Case Study) with Michael Fulton, Associate VP, IT Strategy & Innovation, Paul Gilmore, AVP Technology Innovation Delivery, and Phil Hamlin, Director IT Applications, Transformational Innovation Group, at Nationwide Mutual Assurance
  • How a Large Retailer Drove Digital Transformation with a High Velocity Delivery Model with Satya Misra, Associate Director at HCL Technologies
  • Controlling Your Digital Transition Using the IT4IT™ Standard with Lars Rossen, Micro Focus Fellow in the Office of Strategy and Technology

Day Two

Day two began with a warm welcome from Steve Nunn and Myles Suer, the 9th leading influencer of CIOs and Head of Global Enterprise Marketing at Dell Boomi/#CIOChat. Suer offered some food for thought to set us up for the day ahead, stating “Enterprise Architects are the foundation for a digital company.”

The day’s plenary sessions kicked off with a presentation from Deepak Bisen from Tata Consultancy Services, which provided a deep dive on ‘Digital First’ in the Commercial Aviation Sector. Based on his 18 years of experience as an Enterprise Architect and driving IT solutions for leading Airlines in North America, Bisen explored how the aviation industry can embrace digitalization. “Is this the only time the world has witnessed disruption? The answer is no. Business 4.0 is here and the aviation industry must embrace risk and leverage ecosystems for exponential value”.

Next up was Pedro Vieira from Petrobras to discuss digital challenges for the Oil and Gas Industry. This session addressed why, in light of the worldwide drop in oil prices, the industry must focus on leveraging its data to enable more efficient chemical processing plants that are independent of proprietary technologies.

Tuesday was rounded off with highlight track sessions focused on ‘Digital Business’ and ‘Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture’, including:

  • Making Digital Business a Reality with Jose Kuzhivelil, Director at Capgemini and Manish Parulekar, Director at Capgemini Technology Services India Ltd
  • Human Centric Digital Assistant to Improve Productivity & Efficiency of the Employee with Abhishek Ojha, Enterprise Architect and Bhaumik Pathak, consulting expert at ITC Infotech
  • Agile EA: Core to Digital Transformation with Joji George, Group Architect, Products & Solutions Engineering, Maersk Technology

Day Three

Day three started with a collaborative TOGAF® User Group session in which key TOGAF stakeholders and end-users came together to share information and best practices. Attendees had the opportunity to join sessions hosted by a plethora of leading experts to learn more about The Open Group Architecture Portfolio, as well as how Enterprise Architecture can enable the Agile Enterprise and deliver value to market. Presenters were: Andrew Josey, The Open Group; Paul Homan, IBM; Sonia Gonzales, The Open Group; Chris Frost, Fujitsu; Mick Adams, EY.

Andrew Josey, VP Standards and Certification, The Open Group, outlined the path to becoming TOGAF 9 Certified during the TOGAF User Group at #ogVIRTUAL

Wednesday concluded with a Data Science workshop facilitated by Neeraj Madan, Maureen Norton, and George Stark from IBM. This interactive workshop offered surprising use cases and actionable insights to help attendees develop new ways of thinking about and applying data to solve key challenges within their own organizations – particularly to improve the customer experience.

Each session had great participation and engagement keeping our Webex chat panel and live polls incredibly busy!

The event agenda can be found here.

And that’s a wrap for The Open Group ‘Digital First’ event! Many thanks to our wonderful sponsors; Mega International, AEA, BRM Institute, Van Haren Publishing, and SNA Technologies.

Thank you also to all of our terrific speakers and attendees. Our next quarterly event will be virtual as well – July 20-22, 2020. Stay tuned for the agenda and we hope you’ll join!

Proceedings and recordings from this event are soon forthcoming to all Members and attendees.

We’re sending best wishes to our Members, presenters, partners, customers, and staff around the world.  Please stay safe and healthy!

@TheOpenGroup #ogVIRTUAL

Loren K. Baynes, Director, Global Marketing Communications, joined The Open Group in 2013 and spearheads corporate marketing initiatives, primarily the website, blog, media relations, and social media. Loren has over 25 years experience in brand marketing and public relations and, prior to The Open Group, was with The Walt Disney Company for over 10 years. Loren holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Texas A&M University. She is based in the US.

 

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