Podcasts about information technology research

Dr. Michael Zargham provides a systems engineering perspective on AI agents, emphasizing accountability structures and the relationship between principals who deploy agents and the agents themselves. In this episode, he brings clarity to the often misunderstood concept of agents in AI by grounding them in established engineering principles rather than treating them as mysterious or elusive entities.Show highlights• Agents should be understood through the lens of the principal-agent relationship, with clear lines of accountability• True validation of AI systems means ensuring outcomes match intentions, not just optimizing loss functions• LLMs by themselves are "high-dimensional word calculators," not agents - agents are more complex systems with LLMs as components• Guardrails provide deterministic constraints ("musts" or "shalls") versus constitutional AI's softer guidance ("shoulds")• Systems engineering approaches from civil engineering and materials science offer valuable frameworks for AI development• Authority and accountability must align - people shouldn't be held responsible for systems they don't have authority to control• The transition from static input-output to closed-loop dynamical systems represents the shift toward truly agentic behavior• Robust agent systems require both exploration (lab work) and exploitation (hardened deployment) phases with different standardsExplore Dr. Zargham's workProtocols and Institutions (Feb 27, 2025)Comments Submitted by BlockScience, University of Washington APL Information Risk and Synthetic Intelligence Research Initiative (IRSIRI), Cognitive Security and Education Forum (COGSEC), and the Active Inference Institute (AII) to the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development National Coordination Office's Request for Comment on The Creation of a National Digital Twins R&D Strategic Plan NITRD-2024-13379 (Aug 8, 2024)What did you think? Let us know.Do you have a question or a discussion topic for the AI Fundamentalists? Connect with them to comment on your favorite topics: LinkedIn - Episode summaries, shares of cited articles, and more. YouTube - Was it something that we said? Good. Share your favorite quotes. Visit our page - see past episodes and submit your feedback! It continues to inspire future episodes.

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Sam Wooley of the University of Texas School of Journalism discusses journalism, propaganda, and ethics. Our conversations unpacks the definition of propaganda and how today's technology fuels propaganda and influence. Research Question: Encrypted messaging apps (like WhatApp, Signal, Discord, etc) are becoming more popular, and incubation of disinformation campaigns happens in those spaces. How does disinformation and propaganda spread in encrypted spaces? How will we study propaganda in transport-layer encrypted spaces? Resources: Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned #112 Jake Sotiriadis on the Value Proposition of Future Studies #107 Vanessa Otero on News Ecosystem Health #14 BDJ on Threatcasting #116 Matt Jackson on Social Learning and Game Theory Sam Wooley's Bio Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky Yellow Journalism Bots by Nick Monaco, Samuel Woolley Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity by Sam Woolley Center for Media Engagement at University of Texas Link to full show notes and resources https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-117 Guest Bio:  Samuel C. Woolley is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and an assistant professor, by courtesy, in the School of Information--both at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the project director for propaganda research at the Center for Media Engagement (CME) at UT.  Woolley is currently a research associate at the Project for Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University. He has held past research affiliations at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the University of California at Berkeley.  Woolley's research is focused on how emergent technologies are used in and around global political communication. His work on computational propaganda—the use of social media in attempts to manipulate public opinion—has revealed the ways in which a wide variety of political groups in the United States and abroad have leveraged tools such as bots and trending algorithms and tactics of disinformation and trolling in efforts to control information flows online. His research on digital politics, automation/AI, social media, and political polarization is currently supported by grants from by Omidyar Network (ON), the Miami Foundation, and the Knight Foundation. His past research has been funded by the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the New Venture Fund for Communications, and others. His latest book, The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth, was released in January 2020 by PublicAffairs (US) and Octopus/Endeavour (UK). It explores the ways in which emergent technologies--from deep fakes to virtual reality--are already being leveraged to manipulate public opinion, and how they are likely to be used in the future. He proposes strategic responses to these threats with the ultimate goal of empowering activists and pushing technology builders to design for democracy and human rights.  He is currently working on two other books. Manufacturing Consensus (Yale University Press) explores the ways in which social media, and automated tools such as bots, have become global mechanisms for creating illusions of political support or popularity. He discusses the power of these tools for amplification and suppression of particular modes of digital communication, building on Herman and Chomsky's (1988) integral work on propaganda. His other book, co-authored with Nicholas Monaco, is titled Bots (Polity) and is a primer on the ways these automated tools have become integral to the flow of all manner of information online. Woolley is the co-editor, with Philip N. Howard (Oxford) of Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media, released in 2018 by the Oxford Studies in Digital Politics series at Oxford University Press. This volume of country specific case studies explores the rise of social media--and tools like algorithms and automation--as mechanisms for political manipulation around the world. He has published several peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and white papers on emergent technology, the Internet and public life in publications such as the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, the International Journal of Communication, A Networked Self: Platforms, Stories, Connections, The Political Economy of Robots: Prospects for Prosperity and Peace in an Automated 21st Century, The Handbook of Media, Conflict and Security, and Can Public Diplomacy Survive the Internet? Bots, Echo Chambers and Disinformation.   Woolley is the founding director of the Digital Intelligence Lab, a research and policy oriented project at the Institute for the Future—a 50-year-old think-tank located in Palo Alto, CA. Before this he served as the director of research at the National Science Foundation and European Research Council supported Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is a former resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund's Digital Innovation Democracy Initiative and a former Belfer Fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center for Science and technology. He is a former research fellow at Jigsaw, Google's think-tank and technology incubator, at the Center Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington's Schools of Law and Information, and at the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University.  His public work on computational propaganda and social media bots has appeared in venues including Wired, the Guardian,TechCrunch, Motherboard, Slate, and The Atlantic. For his research, Woolley has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian and on PBS' Frontline, BBC's News at Ten, and ABC's Today. His work on computational propaganda and bots has been presented to members of the U.S. Congress, the U.K. Parliament, NATO, and others. His Ph.D. is in Communication from the University of Washington. His website is samwoolley.org and he tweets from @samuelwoolley.  About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain. For more information, please contact us at communications@information-professionals.org. Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn. Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, 1) IPA earns from qualifying purchases, 2) IPA gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

In this episode of MY DATA IS BETTER THAN YOURS the host of the podcast, Jonas Rashedi, is talking to Stephen Brobst, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Teradata, the connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics company. Stephen holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MBA from Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management. Stephen is a TDWI Fellow and has been on the faculty of The Data Warehousing Institute since 1996. During Barack Obama's first term he was also appointed to the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in the working group on Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD). A few years ago, he was ranked by ExecRank as the #4 CTO in the United States (behind the CTOs from Amazon.com, Tesla Motors, and Intel) out of a pool of 10,000+ CTOs. His conclusion: Every government (and every business) needs a data strategy! Jonas and Stephen talk about the evolution of Data in the last 10 years. There was a lot of progress: 10 years ago, companies were building data warehouses and working on premise, today most innovative companies work in the cloud and drive their innovations more effectively in the cloud! And there was also an evolution in the teams, which is why Stephen sees the need to decentralize, democratize and re-use data in all lines of business. None the less, for him it's important that there is a central monitoring as some kind of “governance”. If there is no centralization in the decentralization, it's anarchy! Moreover, Jonas and Stephen talk about Data products and how to start with an MVP, how marketeers, data people and the IT can work together and how goals need to be adjusted so you can save time and effort. In lots of projects the marketeers and data people behave like crazy teenagers, having lots of ideas, wanting to start right away and the IT people are the responsible parents, looking if everything is secure. To Teradata: https://www.teradata.de To Stephen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-brobst-70127956/ To the website of Jonas: https://www.jonas-rashedi.de To Jonas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonasrashedi/

How do we amplify the positive effects of blockchain innovation? Influencing policy makers on technological capabilities and wider implications on society is a good place to start.Camille Crittenden, Executive Director of UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), envisions many possible use cases where blockchain will make a difference in the next 5-10 years.  She had the opportunity to Chair The California Blockchain Working Group that created a roadmap to recommend potential public applications for government legislation.This conversation leads you through considerations for appropriate applications and defining blockchain characteristics that make it fit for certain areas in Vital and Health Records, Supply Chain, Property, Utilities and Finance, Commercial Business  and Education

This is part 2 of Khari Douglas' interview with Dr. Keith Marzullo, the Dean of the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park and formerly the director of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. In this episode, Dr. Marzullo discusses joining an iSchool as a computer scientist, the latest projects at the Maryland iSchool, and the future of cybersecurity.

Khari Douglas interviews Dr. Keith Marzullo, the Dean of the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Marzullo joined the iSchool from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he directed the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. In this episode, Dr. Marzullo discusses his research background, experience teaching, and his time spent in the federal government.

Researchers from UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) have developed an innovative remote sensing network to provide real-time assessment of California snow pack in order to better manage water supplies for a variety of users. Series: "Sustainable California" [Science] [Show ID: 32352]

Researchers from UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) have developed an innovative remote sensing network to provide real-time assessment of California snow pack in order to better manage water supplies for a variety of users. Series: "Sustainable California" [Science] [Show ID: 32352]

Associate professor Ping Yu, director of the University of Wollongong’s Health Information Technology Research Centre on a project that will examine the relationship between the interaction of caregivers and residents living with dementia and their anxiety levels.

Our guest today is Bob Dobbins, Vice President, New Business Development at Panasonic Corporation of North America.  We will be talking to him today about Panasonic's upcoming Innovation HealthJam. The Innovation HealthJam is a completely virtual event that brings together a diverse and knowledgeable group of people from the healthcare and technology fields to brainstorm ideas, improvements and innovation in healthcare.  The event is co-hosted by a group of healthcare industry leaders and led by Panasonic's Innovation Group.  Sponsors include leading healthcare industry organizations: The American Medical AssociationThe Center for Technology and AgingThe Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS)Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)Personal Connected Health Alliancs (PCHA), a collaboration between Continua Health Alliance, mHealth Summit and HIMSS; along with technology providers Intel and Panasonic, and academic institutions UC Davis and UCSF There are eight focus areas for the Jam: Patient Engagement and Healthcare Design for Consumers  Technology and Older Adults: The New Era of Connected AgingA Mobile Health Agenda for Transforming Healthcare DeliveryCompute for Personalized Medicine: Finding the Cause and Cure through GenomicsTelehealth and Telemedicine: Emerging Opportunities in Addressing the Triple AimYour Physician of the FutureHealth Innovation for Vulnerable Populations - WorldwideRemote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Join us for an exciting discussion - Mr. Dobbins will be taking questions on air. This episode is sponsored by Panasonic USA.

Life is a Sacred Journey ‘Technology and Aging Part 2' on Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 5 pm!Call us (949) 270-5908 to join the discussionJoin Micheal Pope and her guest Dr. David Lindeman for Part 2 of ‘Technology and Aging.'David Lindeman, Ph.D., is the Director of the CITRIS Health Care Program and Director of the Center for Aging and Technology at the University of California Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).Dr. Lindeman has worked in the field of aging and long-term care for 30 years as a health services researcher and administrator.Listen to more episodes.Click here to SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel.Like us on Facebook.

Life is a Sacred Journey ‘Technology and Aging Part 2’ on Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 5 pm! Call us (949) 270-5908 to join the discussion Join Micheal Pope and her guest Dr. David Lindeman for Part 2 of ‘Technology and Aging.’ David Lindeman, Ph.D., is the Director of the CITRIS Health Care Program and Director of the Center for Aging and Technology at the University of California Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). Dr. Lindeman has worked in the field of aging and long-term care for 30 years as a health services researcher and administrator. Listen to more episodes. Click here to SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel. Like us on Facebook.

On this episode of Expanded Perspectives the guys talk with Warren Darragh of the Thylacine Research Unit. Warren ‘Waz’ Darragh is an information technology and telecommunications professional who holds a Bachelor of Information Technology degree and a Master of Information Technology (Research) degree. He has over 20 years experience in the implementation of technology solutions - including national and international experience in a wide variety of conditions and climates. Warren served for over a decade in the Australian Regular Army, and is a Graduate of the Royal Military College Duntroon - Australia's premiere military leadership institution. He saw operational service in Cambodia and in the Former Yugoslavia (Bosnia Herzegovina). Warren's time in the Army gave both formal training and exposure to living in the 'great outdoors'. Since that time he has taken every opportunity to get out into the field, where he enjoys honing his skills in camping, hiking, trekking and four wheel driving. Warren has applied his research skills to learning everything he can about the biology, habits, habitats, and history of the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger). He also holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Machado. He is a member of T.R.U. (Thylacine Research Unit). T.R.U. is a committed group of scientists, naturalists, enthusiasts and specialists from diverse backgrounds. The researchers who compose the T.R.U. are engaged in field investigations and experiments designed to address various aspects of the natural history and determination of the continued existence of the thylacine. Through the education and experience of its members and the quality of their research and investigation, The  T.R.U seeks to be the most credible and respected investigative network involved in the study of the thylacine. Show Notes: The Norway Spiral T.R.U. Thylacine Research Unit The Last know Thylacine Video 1933 Music for the show is provided by Pretty Lights. Purchase, Download and Donate at www.prettylightsmusic.com  

Mike Ashenfelder from the Library of Congress talks with Chris Greer about the role of the federal government in science and information technology and about the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program, the primary mechanism the federal government uses to coordinate its IT research.

Co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley School of Information, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), and the UC Services Science, Management, and Engineering Program Uses of novel digital technologies often start with students and are eventually adopted, initially reluctantly, by enterprises. For the past six years much of Grudin's research has focused on early enterprise adoption of communication technologies including instant messaging, weblogs, wikis, and social networking software such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The first half of this presentation will outline a handful of patterns that emerged in Grudin's 20 years of studying technology adoption. Grudin will follow with an overview of enterprise uses of emerging technologies, with some speculation as to where it may be heading.

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Lucy Sanders CEO and Co-founder, NCWIT Date: June 4, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Lucy Sanders BIO: Lucy Sanders is CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and also serves as Executive-in-Residence for the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has an extensive industry background, having worked in R&D and executive positions at AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent Bell Labs, and Avaya Labs for over 20 years, where she specialized in systems-level software and solutions (multi-media communication and customer relationship management.) In 1996, Lucy was awarded the Bell Labs Fellow Award, the highest technical accomplishment bestowed at the company, and she has six patents in the communications technology area. Lucy serves on several boards, including the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) Board of Trustees at the University of California at Berkeley; the Engineering Advisory Council at the University of Colorado at Boulder; the Denver Public Schools Computer Magnet Advisory Board; the Advisory Board for the Women's College Applied Computing Program at the University of Denver; and several corporate boards. In 2004 Lucy was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Engineering at CU. Lucy also is Conference Chair for the 2007 Grace Hopper Conference, having served as Program Chair for the conference in 2006. She is currently serving on the Information Technology Research and Development Ecosystem Commission for the National Academies. Lucy received her B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Louisiana State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, respectively. Larry: This is Larry Nelson, and I am so pleased that I'm a part of helping get this new campaign kicked off. We have with us today Lucinda Sanders. Lucinda is the CEO and co‑founder of NCWIT, here at the University of Colorado. Welcome to the show, Lucinda. Lucy: Thank you Larry. You can just call me Lucy if you'd like. Larry: Oh, I'd love the more comfortable. All right. Lucy: All right. Larry: Now this is the real kick‑off for the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Interview series. So we are just getting this kicked off. And Lucinda, you have such an interesting background. We'll get into some of that. We are going to take a closer look at what this series is really all about. I'm very excited. Let me ask this question. It's a basic, but a very important question. How did you first get involved with technology? Lucy: I first got involved in technology by learning to program computers when I was in college. From there, once you learn how computers worked and I got a computer science degree and out into industry and started to see how you could use technology and computing to solve real world problems for people. And so I would say I really came at it from a very traditional way, through the education path, and on through getting a graduate degree in computer science as well. Larry: Let me take a quick leap here. What technology today do you think is really cool? Lucy: Well, I really like radio tags. You know RFIDs? I think that technology ‑ first of all, it's very difficult, not the radio tag itself, but dealing with all the data that radio tags can potentially send when they pass readers. And so, the use of those and not just basic inventory systems, but for example, you could use such a radio tag on frozen food and then it has a recipe on it that can talk to your microwave oven and then cook the food automatically when you put the food in the microwave oven. Your radio tags can be used for lots and lots of things ‑ and fairly creative things as well. Larry: That really is cool. Now, Lucy, in this series we are going to be interviewing a number of entrepreneurs. But also, we want to take a look at the entrepreneurial aspect, because you are a Bell Labs Fellow. Let's see if we can take a look at that. How do you operate as an entrepreneur as well as what got you involved with that? Lucy: Well, inside Bell labs, I was always working on the leading edge projects and in fact, inside big companies like Bell labs or AT&T or Lucent, its often the case that small teams form that are a lot like entrepreneurial companies. Now they don't have to go out and raise capital. You don't necessarily have venture capitalists, but they do have to attract budget within the company to move the product ahead. And they frequently have small teams, really too small teams to get the product done. And they really are in many ways, entrepreneurial in nature. So, I always had those kinds of projects. For example, working on the very first risk‑based processing PBX system and operating system; all the way though Internet commerce and working on voice over IP and multimedia collaboration systems. I always gravitated toward those types of projects. I've loved them. I love them still and in fact, NCWIT is almost like that kind of a start up project. Larry: Yes, it is. Lucy: Its entrepreneurial, its socially entrepreneurial, but those kinds of projects where you don't know the answers, where it's not routine operational or maintenance, where you really are creating something from nothing and using the creative talent of people, I think, is what really excites me about that. Larry: That's one of the interesting aspects. Many people who are hearing about NCWIT for the first time, could you give us just a little overview about what it is? Lucy: Sure. NCWIT stands for the National Center for Women and Information Technology. We are really focused on getting more girls and women into information technology in its broadest sense ‑ into use of computing for all types of applications. We really work across the whole pipeline, K‑12 through entrepreneurial careers, which is one reason why we're so excited to be sponsoring this interview series with really fabulous women and IT entrepreneurs. Larry: Yes, we are really looking forward to it. I've seen the list and it's fantastic. Let me see if I could just dig a little bit deeper here, Lucy. What is one of the toughest things that you have had to face in your career? Lucy: Well, probably one of the saddest, I would say tough times was downsizing the team or shutting a location. We went through periods of time where we would buy companies and integrate them, integrate the technology, and integrate the teams. Sometimes you had to make the tough choices about which locations needed to be shut down and people had to be laid off or let go. That's always tough. You lose a lot of sleep over that kind of a decision. It's in the best interest for the business and yet from an individual's perspective, it's certainly quite difficult. Whenever I face that, I really try hard to do the right thing, find people jobs, make sure they could transfer other places or that in the local economy there were places that could take them as well. So, when we did have to face that kind of decision, we did it with as much grace and humanity as we could. But that's easily one of the toughest things that I've ever had to do. Larry: You know, one of the things that if you talk to any really IT pro or an IT one of those people who are really out there, the word mentor or role model comes up all the time. Who are some of the people in your career that influenced you? Lucy: Well, one person who influenced me that I've never met, but I modeled myself after him to some degree because he was the very first chief technology officer I have ever seen, ever heard about using that title and that was Eric Schmidt when he was at Sun. Of course, we all know he has gone on to Google, but I really liked what he did in terms of getting out there and explaining technology and how he was expansive in his thinking about technical solutions and he really was somebody who I looked at and thought, I'd really like to be a chief technology officer. In fact, I did become one and I love that role. So, in one way, I think he influenced me quite a bit although he wouldn't know me from the man on the moon. Larry: That is interesting, indeed. Lucy: He totally influenced me and I had a number of mentors inside Bell Labs that I thought were just outstanding. I think I've talked to you before how the culture at Bell Labs really supported mentoring and women and I had a number of mentors who really taught me a lot. Larry: It might not be looked at from the outside so much, but your position here with NCWIT is really just like an entrepreneur. So let's imagine you were sitting down right now talking to a young girl, a young woman who is thinking about maybe getting into a field and being an entrepreneur. What kind of advice would you share with them? Lucy: Well, so often when you are just starting something out, it's very ill‑formed because in fact is doesn't exist. And so, I guess my advice would be to just live with that. Know what you know and try to test it with everybody. Go test the heck out of it. So if you have an idea for a company or you have a way to explain what you want your nonprofit to be doing, you do your best story and then go tell it, and tell it over and over and over again, get input. And think expansively about it, because quite likely it'll be very different in a month or two months or six months as you go out and do that, but don't be afraid of not knowing the answer. I think so many people stop themselves because they can't see clearly between where they are and where they want to go. And in fact, I would maintain that that's exactly the kind of job you want, where you sit with what you have, and you make the best possible case, and you just keep improving it as you go. I think with NCWIT we have had people, not so much anymore because we are really tight on our story, we know exactly what we're doing and we can explain it in 10 minutes, you know, the famous elevator pitch, but we had a few people when we first got started who just wouldn't come along because they couldn't see clearly what it was going to be or where it was going to go. They couldn't get with the vision. So I think entrepreneurs need to be exceptional at this. Larry: I couldn't agree more. Here you are, I mean, you are busy, you travel around the country, you meet with all kinds of groups and individuals from entrepreneurs to larger organizations. How do you bring balance to your personal and to your professional lives? Lucy: Flexibility, a flexible schedule, being able to schedule things when you pretty much want to do them. So it's not uncommon to see me working until midnight; it's also not uncommon to see me taking off in the middle of the day and going to see my kids play soccer or doing what they're going to do. Was it Best Buy that had a story on the un-tethered workplace? It's not so important when you do your job and work, or where you do it, but that you do it. Now, obviously that can't get taken to the total extreme. Often you need to have schedules and meet with people and be attentive to that, but I think having that kind of flexibility in my day is what makes it all work out. Larry: Don't you go out there and jog every now and then too? Lucy: I jog all the time. I run every day, although I'm a little slower than I used to be, but I can still get out there and go a good four or five miles. Larry: Excellent. Lucy: And running's great. Gardening's great. My husband and I like to ‑ my husband's a great cook ‑ and so we like to eat. I guess that doesn't bring balance, it might bring a few pounds. Well, you know, hey. Larry: You know, I think it was just a week or so ago, I think Brad Feld said, "I think that Lucy Sanders just passed me." Lucy: He did not. Larry: Oh, didn't he say that? Oh, Okay. I thought he... Lucy: The day I pass Brad Feld is a day to celebrate. Larry: Yeah, you bet. Woman 1: I have a question. You have two boys. Lucy: Yes. Woman: So how do they look at you in the broader scope of women? Lucy: Interestingly enough, I think that kids of their age still aren't at the place where they see that there is any difference in the way people act and they don't want to admit it. The way they look at me is, I think, I'm just Mom. So we don't really talk about any under‑representation issues or anything else. Now, I would say that they are, I think they're proud of me. I think they have seen my career and what I've done, and I think that it motivates them. I could be wrong, you could interview them. Larry: Lucy, let me ask you this question. What do you feel gave you the advantage to get in the position that you're in today as well as all the way through your IT experience? Lucy: Well, I really am very relentless, not relentless in a bad way, but I go at it over and over and over until I find what I want. So I don't want to say I'm patient, because I'm really very impatient, but I'm very... Larry: Persistent? Lucy: I'm persistent. I'm very, no, my husband says I'm very relentless. Larry: Oh, really? OK. Lucy: And I am relentless in business. So I really do look at every no I get as just the first step to a yes, that they didn't mean it. Larry: Wow. You sound like Thomas Edison. Lucy: I think that that's important, I think, it has been important to me. The other thing that I think has been important to me is that I work incredibly hard. I put in a lot of hours and I have extremely high standards. And I have high standards for myself first, and I have high standards for others later. And at the same time, I have incredibly high forgiveness, so if the bar is high, then there should be a safety net and people should not be made to feel bad if they can't quite climb over that high bar. It's just that if you set it really high, then there's always going to be learning. So I think some of those perspectives have helped me in giving me a bit of an advantage. Larry: Wow. I like that. That is usable, powerful, motivating; that's really good. You know, by any standards, you have already accomplished a great deal in your life. And I know you've got a lot of things probably down the road that you'd like to do, but give me a little piece of near‑term, what do you see for yourself in the near‑term, and then maybe longer down the road? Lucy: Well, near‑term, I think, speaking about NCWIT, we have spent about two and a half years really building the foundational infrastructure for NCWIT. By that I mean we've got about 100 organizations, corporations, universities, nonprofits that are part of our alliances. We've built a technical infrastructure to support them; we've built a best practices infrastructure to support them; and project management meetings and workshops to support them. And now it's time to really start to drive the utilization of that infrastructure and to create series like this interview, series to really work on reform within our organizations. So that's in the short‑term for NCWIT. I mean, you can imagine building out a national infrastructure takes a little time. And I do think that people will commit to reform within their organizations once they see the infrastructure's there to support that. So we're at that point right now; it's an exciting time for us. The longer‑term, I don't yet know. I'm still really in the startup of NCWIT, so I'm pretty blind to everything else and I can't see that far out. Although I do know this: I really love technology. I don't think I'm through inventing technology yet, but I don't know what that looks like. Larry: We're going to follow up on that and find out. Lucy: Okay. Larry: Wow, Lucy, this was a fantastic piece of information. We're really looking forward to the series, the entrepreneurs interview series for IT and women. This is going to be just great. And what's the website that they can go to check out other stories? Lucy: It'll be hosted from the NCWIT website, www.ncwit.org. Larry: Sounds perfect. Lucy, thank you so much. Lucy: Thank you. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Lucy SandersInterview Summary: Lucy Sanders is start-up CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology. She is a former VP at AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent Bell Labs, and Avaya Labs, and holds six patents. Release Date: June 4, 2007Interview Subject: Lucy SandersInterviewer(s): Larry Nelson Duration: 13:35

One of the most important weapons in our arsenal for securing applications is threat modeling. Applications are becoming increasingly complex and new technologies are emerging constantly. In this scenario, building or attacking applications is challenging. Threat models can help attackers discover design vulnerabilities and mount complex attacks. These models give secure application developers a great amount of leverage to envision their design, implementation and soundness of their architectures. Being living documents they also carry forward any knowledge gained from previous development life cycles and are invaluable in understanding the impact of any changes to the overall security posture of the applications. Understanding and constructing meaningful threat models is hard. Application teams and attackers need to be aware of what they want to model, how they want to model and when they want to model. Rapid Threat Modeling will help them develop models rapidly while reutilizing data they gathered either through reconnaissance or through the software development lifecycle. A practical hands-on demonstration of modeling threats for complex managed application will allow for immediate use of any threat modeling knowledge gained. Akshay Aggarwal currently works for IOActive Inc. as a computer security consultant where he is responsible for conducting security architecture design, application and source-code assessments and vulnerability research. He helps Fortune 100 clients evaluate the security of their software products and applications and develop threat models. He has authored several research papers and been invited to speak at many forums like the Multi-University Research Initiative for Protocol Development and the Center for Information Technology Research in Interest of Society. Akshay holds a MS in Computer Science from the University of California at Davis. There, at the renowned Computer Security Lab, he conducted research on Internet worms and Intrusion detection systems.

One of the most important weapons in our arsenal for securing applications is threat modeling. Applications are becoming increasingly complex and new technologies are emerging constantly. In this scenario, building or attacking applications is challenging. Threat models can help attackers discover design vulnerabilities and mount complex attacks. These models give secure application developers a great amount of leverage to envision their design, implementation and soundness of their architectures. Being living documents they also carry forward any knowledge gained from previous development life cycles and are invaluable in understanding the impact of any changes to the overall security posture of the applications. Understanding and constructing meaningful threat models is hard. Application teams and attackers need to be aware of what they want to model, how they want to model and when they want to model. Rapid Threat Modeling will help them develop models rapidly while reutilizing data they gathered either through reconnaissance or through the software development lifecycle. A practical hands-on demonstration of modeling threats for complex managed application will allow for immediate use of any threat modeling knowledge gained. Akshay Aggarwal currently works for IOActive Inc. as a computer security consultant where he is responsible for conducting security architecture design, application and source-code assessments and vulnerability research. He helps Fortune 100 clients evaluate the security of their software products and applications and develop threat models. He has authored several research papers and been invited to speak at many forums like the Multi-University Research Initiative for Protocol Development and the Center for Information Technology Research in Interest of Society. Akshay holds a MS in Computer Science from the University of California at Davis. There, at the renowned Computer Security Lab, he conducted research on Internet worms and Intrusion detection systems.