In an article by InformationWeek back in 2018, Sr. Data Scientist Sophie Searcy stated, “Given the critical role data scientists play in how data is used (or misused), it’s imperative that we fairly represent everyone impacted by our work, which is to say, all of us. In order to ensure that this happens, the data science industry must be absolutely committed to hiring and developing diverse talent.” She went on to state, “when blacks make up 13% of the US population but represent just 1% of hires at our leading tech companies (look no further than Google and Amazon for examples), something’s wrong.”

Who would have thought a year ago that Google and Apple would join forces and work together to aid humanity? But if 2020 has taught us anything it’s that we are in a peculiar game of Jumanji where anything is possible – and that includes two tech giants working together to create an app that can track Covid-19 infections around the world. If used correctly – this app could help detect cases in the United States.

Everywhere you look these days, IT organizations are looking to the cloud to solve their data storage, movement, and analytics challenges…and with good reason! Cloud services from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others have revolutionized how we think about data, from an IT and an end user perspective.