Judith S. Hurwitz

Judith is a technology consultant and strategist, analyst, author, and thought leader. As president of a research and consulting firm—Hurwitz & Associates— Judith’s work has focused on emerging technology, including cloud computing, big data, software development, computing management, and security. Prior to starting Hurwitz & Associates, Judith founded two other companies— CycleBridge, a life science software consulting firm, and Hurwitz Group, Inc., a research and analyst firm. She has worked at various corporations, including Apollo Computer and John Hancock. Judith serves on several advisory boards for emerging companies, and she is a frequent speaker at technology conferences as well as a guest lecturer.

In 2011, she authored a business leadership book, Smart or Lucky? How Technology Leaders Turn Chance into Success (Jossey-Bass, 2011). Judith is a coauthor of nine books in addition to Augmented Intelligence, including Cognitive Computing and Big Data Analytics (Wiley Publishing, 2015), Cloud for Dummies (Wiley Publishing, 2020), and Big Data for Dummies (Wiley Publishing, 2013). In addition, she contributed a chapter to Intuition, Trust, and Analytics (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, 2018). Judith holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Boston University. She is a member of Boston University’s College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board.

Henry Morris

Henry is a consultant and thought leader in applying analytics, business processes, and governance to business systems. He served as Senior Vice President for Worldwide Software and Services Research and was a Research Fellow at International Data Corporation (IDC). During his tenure at IDC, Henry founded the research practice on analytics, coining the now industry-standard term “analytic applications.” Henry is renowned for his work on analytics software that is purpose-built to support decision-oriented business processes. He has provided consulting advice on applied analytics to some of the most prominent vendors and corporations.

Prior to his work at IDC, Henry was a senior marketing manager for database and applications development and a technical writer at Digital Equipment Corporation. He was the author of Introduction to Database Development, which described detailed strategies for balancing transactional and analytical database access. Henry was also Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Colgate University, Lecturer at Tufts University Experimental College (artificial intelligence and the changing workplace), and Lecturer at Northeastern University and Bentley University (in technical writing). He has a B.A. with distinction from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Candace Sidner

Candace (Candy) is a computer scientist, researcher, and consultant with a long-standing interest in human communication and collaboration, and their application to agents, robots, and interfaces. Candy is especially focused on those systems that are using gesture, social behavior, speech, and natural language. She is a Research Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). She was Principle Investigator (PI) of the Always On Relational Agent project with Chuck Rich at WPI and Tim Bickmore at Northeastern University, and co-PI for the ONR-sponsored WPI project: Collaborative Robot Learning from Demonstration Using Hierarchical Task Networks. Candy has recently worked on multimodal (including gesture) interfaces using a humanoid robot for the role of engagement in conversation, and on interfaces, including those with speech, involving collaborative interface agents using DISCO. Candy has also been a research scientist at a number of companies, including Mitsubishi Electronic Research Labs, and served as a Division Scientist at BAE Systems.

Candy is a Fellow and past Councilor of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, was elected a Fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics, and is a senior member of the IEEE. She serves on the editorial board of the Springer Journal of Multimodal User Interfaces. She has been an associate editor of the journal ACM Transactions on Intelligent Interactive Systems, an associate editor of the journal Artificial Intelligence (2008–2012), and was president of the Association for Computational Linguistics (1989).

Candy received her B.S. in Mathematics from Kalamazoo College, an M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Ph.D. from MIT in Computer Science.

Daniel Kirsch

Daniel (Dan) is a consultant, analyst, and thought leader focused on how emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics are impacting businesses. Dan is particularly interested in how businesses use these emerging technologies to alter their approaches to information security, governance, risk, and ethics. Dan provides advisory services directly to leadership at technology vendors that design and deliver security solutions to the market. He assists them in aligning their solutions with enterprise requirements. Dan is viewed as an expert in understanding security solutions and mapping them to the complex needs of business across industries. He developed the Hurwitz & Associates security audit and assessment tools. These tools help customers determine how well they are achieving compliance, and outline practical next steps.

Dan earned his B.A. in Political Science from Union College in New York and a J.D. from Boston College Law School, where he focused on emerging corporate strategies and intellectual property. As an attorney, Dan represented start-ups, cloud computing ventures, and young companies seeking financing. Dan is a co-author of Cloud for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons 2020), Hybrid Cloud for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons, 2012), as well as reports and custom publications in the areas of security, mobility, and analytics.