Lael Alexander - Noitavonne/EOC KeyNote Feb 2019 Mobile World Congress

Summary

Lael Alexander, the father and CEO of Divani, shares his remarkable journey and contributions to the tech industry at the 2019 Mobile World Congress. From his beginnings in engineering in North Louisiana to pioneering innovations in machine-to-machine communication and open-source software development, Alexander's path is marked by significant technological advancements. His work includes contributions to the Android operating system, creating new efficiencies in utility monitoring through innovative network use, and the development of the miracast protocol. Alexander's ventures have opened the doors for startups and encouraged fresh voices in technology, deeply impacting the industry's landscape.

Highlights

• Lael Alexander's move from chemical engineering to tech innovation highlights his diverse range of skills. 🔧
• He played a significant part in developing efficient systems for utility companies, improving data collection and analysis. 💾
• Contributed to Android's open-source development, helping to shape modern mobile operating systems. 📲
• Pioneered machine-to-machine communication with no reliance on telecom networks, heralding a new era of efficiencies. 🔌
• Developed the miracast protocol, influencing how we connect and mirror devices wirelessly today. 📡

Key Takeaways

• Lael Alexander transformed industry conventions by merging software with human assets, carving out unique efficiencies. 🤖
• His journey from engineering to tech innovation demonstrates the dynamic shift in technological advancement since the early 2000s. 🚀
• He played a crucial role in pioneering machine-to-machine communication and contributing to Android development. 📱
• Alexander's work in developing the miracast protocol revolutionized how devices communicate wirelessly. 🌐
• His belief in empowering consumers to demand more from brands drove substantial shifts in market dynamics. 📈

Overview

Lael Alexander's keynote at the 2019 Mobile World Congress showcased his deep expertise and groundbreaking contributions to the tech field. From his early days in Louisiana's engineering scene to becoming the CEO of Divani, Alexander's story is a testament to innovation and perseverance. His ability to see beyond conventional methods led to remarkable tech advancements, influencing both utility companies and global telecommunications.

Among Alexander's many achievements was his significant role in shaping the Android operating system. His work on the miracast protocol set the stage for modern-day wireless communication, allowing devices to connect and share screens effortlessly. This was a pivotal moment that opened new possibilities in how we use technology to interact with the world around us.

Alexander's influence extends beyond his technical contributions. By advocating for consumer empowerment and challenging the status quo of brand monoliths, he sparked a movement that shifted market dynamics and inspired a new generation of startups. His journey reflects the endless possibilities that arise when innovation meets opportunity, making a lasting impact on the technology landscape.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Intro and Background The chapter 'Intro and Background' appears to discuss the role of designers in a school setting. A key point mentioned is the importance of having an amazing designer in every part of the system, though details are not fully provided.
• 00:30 - 05:00: The Journey Begins The Journey Begins: The initial chapter sets the stage for the unfolding narrative. Amidst applause and music, there is a sense of movement and anticipation. The focus is on the subtle actions and recognitions within the environment, hinting at the beginning of an adventure or a significant transition. Although specific details are sparse due to the fragmented transcript, the ambiance suggests readiness and intrigue, marking the commencement of a journey.
• 05:00 - 10:00: Innovations and Challenges The chapter titled 'Innovations and Challenges' discusses the speaker Leon Alexander, father and CEO of Divani, who reflects on his journey over 45 years to his current position. The talk covers the evolution and impact of funding, 5G technology, and connectivity on mobility, highlighting the significant changes and shifts they have brought to the industry.
• 10:00 - 20:00: Breakthrough and Expansion The chapter 'Breakthrough and Expansion' discusses the year 2008, highlighting it as a significant time for many individuals who were at different stages in their careers. Some were employed by other companies, others were contemplating entrepreneurship, while a considerable number of people were engaging with the booming social media platform, Facebook, which had gained significant traction during that year.
• 20:00 - 25:00: Legacy and Impact This chapter discusses the impact of Microsoft's ventures, specifically highlighting how they transformed the concept of a search engine into a decision-making tool with Bing. It reflects on a period when technology companies, including Microsoft, were reshaping their identities and industries, indicating a redefinition of purpose driven by advancements in technology, particularly in search functionalities.

Lael Alexander - Noitavonne/EOC KeyNote Feb 2019 Mobile World Congress Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 have an amazing designer in 40 in each one of the parts to our schools phone designers if you're at some stage [Music]
• 00:30 - 01:00 [Music] [Applause] [Music] you know they know notice how they place
• 01:00 - 01:30 me right after you've eaten right after you've gotten comfortable and it's up to me to wake you guys up I'm Leon Alexander father and CEO of divani now I'll tell you it took me 45 years to get right here right everyone 3p about funding and how five T and connectivity had mobility has moved and changed and shifts shift the entire industry right
• 01:30 - 02:00 but I want to take you guys back to 2008 that's all that means an interesting time because for some of us we were thinking about totally different things some of us was working for other companies some of us was thinking about starting our own companies and a lot of us was just playing on Facebook 2008 was when Facebook really hit their stride
• 02:00 - 02:30 another company also in this ride Microsoft and the other company at the time and all those you might not agree they were redefined by something as simple as search when Microsoft recreated himself when the Bing in the big engine changing search from just search engine to now a decision making you do well I'll tell you during this time they all examiner
• 02:30 - 03:00 there's no room here sit in the technologists engineer actually home from please call in North Louisiana and Martha we man is the home of the Bible Belt of chemical plants refineries so most of the most of the individuals in that area came up in engineering whether
• 03:00 - 03:30 the chemical for thirteen years I've worked in that industry from a little guy and I management all the way up to project management and later we had some opportunities to go ahead and do some pretty unique things because yet understand and 1999 all in gas refinery is random addictive habits in numbers pencils and when CIS majors came into
• 03:30 - 04:00 that world and brought now laptops programming languages and other ways to create efficiencies and created new industries in fact what it even has a real job titles right there for about 13 years we didn't really know what to call our group today we call this a program or control managers I have an opportunity that was presented to me around 2007 with an individual name is
• 04:00 - 04:30 Brooklyn first extent of refining for a Texaco to look at a program that I had developed exactly eliminate a lot of being a workload and there's any coders or programs in the in the room you guys know that we make programs do things that we don't want to do because apparently we're lazy right so this program we made that pre-market it said
• 04:30 - 05:00 for the Pels an acronym is different plan resource executes monitor audit report control this system was developed into a hybrid of software and human assets that would go up to the plants and collect all all of this relative data that would act leave and tell them the speed of production in miles per hour based on revisions and we thought we had something well we
• 05:00 - 05:30 later went on to using instruments to take some of that data from the workforce to the process data and actually started capturing all of those measurements and started developing reports and analysts analysis that economists would use to later protect all of their tician see that's my start
• 05:30 - 06:00 that's not really where I ended let me explain I was invited to hold on Texas and at the time I thought we were only gonna be doing another refinery project at the time refineries were really going through major issues as far as dealing with government regulations drilling all the gas the whole our team the pre one
• 06:00 - 06:30 team was actually set up to look at some utility aspects of working with some local municipalities and we became very good at alternative energy development developing our the permanent power plants and things that I've made Bobby eight months into developing this begin a phone call from LADWP my world changed los angeles was touted
• 06:30 - 07:00 as world's largest municipal utility company some of you out there are in the market of IOT and machine the machine programming well started about to tell you the background of how the IT industry really started in America how many of you are familiar with pull top transformers and how it relates to you having energy
• 07:00 - 07:30 uptime at your home when a transformer blows up that's a blackout in your area believe it or not before 2007 there was no early warning systems that would alert the utility companies but when that transformer was either healthy or had an issue this was one of the projects that actually started doing the era of mobile with an open source
• 07:30 - 08:00 product that you now know as Android I was one of the passive developers on Android in one of my unique contributions to this project well at least m'd from this one utility project you see the UTM beam sensor or unattended monitor device required solution that would allow for a tablet device to communicate with this sensor
• 08:00 - 08:30 back then we weren't really familiar with the 802 9-11 protocols or how on tablets communicated with devices that were above 10 10 feet away from you now I want you to really understand we're up against some major hurdles because that's the deal with the homes of the pop line there was there was no packets or data packets or or protocols development in this copy a source code
• 08:30 - 09:00 and all your plate locks the things that we have now so we have to really be innovative one of the things that we thought to do was use some pretty unique ways of messing DLNA protocols with some other naming protocols over a specific frequency the 2.4 gigahertz frequency that you guys now know as Wi-Fi in knowingness we we
• 09:00 - 09:30 connect our until they tablet to this unattended monitoring device on all top transformers across the state of California the first point great project in the United States of America which later led to other machine the machine prototypes that are now widely successful but it is there was another issue that needs of the companies really wanted to take care of
• 09:30 - 10:00 they have technicians that wanted to communicate with these devices into the film so again we were called on to build its application package that would allow the technicians to communicate with these devices all across California now we thought that this was easy early on and we had some assistance from pretty awesome companies one you guys may know of company called high tech computers at the time they weren't
• 10:00 - 10:30 called eighties HDC you guys know him as a phone maker like then they were building a kit that would allow developers like us go ahead and create a mobile device that communicate on the Android operating system on your privately SN that works so we took this device and we had our share impossible without communication those that would monitor
• 10:30 - 11:00 and measure all these different metrics that would come off our transformers and when were powered both up on one unique thing happened the utility tablet 2008 on and empower the sits are on and utility attempt gave off the screen of the sensor it was a major problem we
• 11:00 - 11:30 didn't understand what was going on because it was just send data back to us but what it was sending was the actual screen so everyone around me Alexander you did it your greatest failure you're supposed to give us data and all you ended up done was mirroring the screen of this device that two guys had out in the in the hair at that time I realized that I had an
• 11:30 - 12:00 agreed the moment of my hand because well as you guys know your cat's was born these guys have to go ahead and continue to chase energy projects taemin taemin optic nerve has opened up the doors for me but I had some other skill sets I'm sorry I like your back that up I don't know if you guys caught that
• 12:00 - 12:30 Bearcats was developed by a total mistake 802 911 protocol using Halliday and all operating over 2.4 gigahertz frequency was a pretty unique thing in 2000 if any of you guys are developing you know that those technologies were even called back that would be be called Wi-Fi right so when we created
• 12:30 - 13:00 this this frequency we have AT&T our largest carrier at the time operating off of there one of their data packets cuz they were the ones that gave us our private DSN they looked at what we were doing as far as collecting data and within the first 15 days it dudes he kept calling us back and say hey are you guys starting the test
• 13:00 - 13:30 said of Mars he says one of the guys mr. John says well we're not seeing any loads coming across these same parts as because there was no loads coming across the centroids all of our sensors that were up on all of these pole top transformers was creating its own frequency and its own unique network that didn't require any spectrum
• 13:30 - 14:00 some would say that this version the whole pre-coffee podgy today seriously 2.4 gigahertz frequency I'm connecting
• 14:00 - 14:30 312 of devices to one tablet without using any carrier spectrum that's interesting really really interesting because Google and my contribution to
• 14:30 - 15:00 the Android operating system was miracast in America there was only six carriers that were labeled tier 1 common carriers tier 1 common carriers operating nationwide and all the extraterritorial variants and Here I am a total outcast to the entire top market
• 15:00 - 15:30 using the utility grid kateri major signal and major data transfer and other people are getting paid for it this is a problem so I got a knock on my door and 18 engineers that were working on this project but mine guy had some pretty great workers and that's we're
• 15:30 - 16:00 doing something new again in the first machine-to-machine contract in American design around this project an FCC had to do something pretty special because at that time we were touted as happy the entire power a little company in Texas packing the
• 16:00 - 16:30 power the term smart the term smart grid cabled up because in order to change the perception of what we were really doing we had we had to really change our marketing approach to explain the cities
• 16:30 - 17:00 that municipality is that us doing this this would actually mean in your efficiencies you consumptions and every methods to your consumer base at a lower cost because knowing is saving right so the lemon tree became a very big thing and the government instead of blocking us all up for hacking the power grid looked at our company and said I think we need to create a special use
• 17:00 - 17:30 permit which later in 2012 turned into the southern tier 1 common carrier license so knowing that we were very
• 17:30 - 18:00 very early and 2.4 gigahertz and 3.25 years wasn't really being used this way because the way you use miracast or the way you use and I share or any other form of technology that allows you to connect your mobile to a screen look at smart phone companion group every phone every device every smart anything
• 18:00 - 18:30 that was made since 2010 has the idea that at all it's alright so when you look at it pretty impactful in this entire market the time although because well if you
• 18:30 - 19:00 had an idea to create a tablet or a phone or a PC what if you had it but I need you to understand there was only 13 companies in the market that could produce it and those 13 companies protected themselves so what so that those of you had our call start up state or talk employees right because there was no start up there was only you working for brands that here in
• 19:00 - 19:30 intellectual property and brought them to the mainstream am I correct is there anyone has a problem with challenge that notion thank you so much I appreciate that alright so by the time if if this young man right here white and had did go ahead agreed the world's best tablet
• 19:30 - 20:00 I was first introduced to the market right I got mass appeal Mike had no one to go to to build it there was no company around it you can actually not gonna go and say hey listen we need you to put me a 4.7 inch foam was making a mold by the way it wasn't even a question because we took what the brand's gave us I did some would say
• 20:00 - 20:30 that 2009 or that was 10 years ago I should in a whole new way for consumers to demand more from those big brands and when those big brands didn't deliver consumers chose to become friends I saw this as a movement and understand I had a pretty unique key to unlock the doors those would never believe this a little
• 20:30 - 21:00 Louisiana boy I want the doors of China I got to tell you a little bit about that story because when I first landed in China it was all about the mirror caps of a smartphone and you loop the protocol because China companies wanted to understand how we were doing these things however always bringing mobile phones together I won't ring computing devices together on networks that Fitness did require telecoms to be
• 21:00 - 21:30 involved so a company called intensive high AC look it up guys this is L reason why I can talk to you about this is China back then they were used to dealing with America and teams it almost seems as though America always sent
• 21:30 - 22:00 teams on the country so whenever whenever they were welcoming you they had a sign saying Alexander that they could not pronounce the word divine on
• 22:00 - 22:30 the sign I walk in his claim and the gentleman walks up and about 13 other people walked up as well and he says Alexander how you doing very nice to meet you where's your team we have the fans outside sorry sir cheaper one he says as you have you ever been attacked before no sir
• 22:30 - 23:00 of course that you speak [Music] he says do you realize that the reason why the reason why we are we light up because we wanted you to give a technology review on the smartphone cabeza loop and all of these people
• 23:00 - 23:30 about funny engineers only pattern language and that's what happened the first three minutes of the conversation was quiet and all that they was writing
• 23:30 - 24:00 the whiteboard and I didn't even said I wanted to because I started walking out late so maybe maybe they look terrific I had to talk a little bit more but I just
• 24:00 - 24:30 tell you real quick from 2009 to 2012 we were the leading design house in Asia some of you guys have probably heard of annoyed by the c-town bodies to kompis first OPM gave startups and brands the opportunity to go ahead and build their own product for their grant wanted and go off to the market you might have seen some of them from Micromax the dns to blue in naming as being one of the first
• 24:30 - 25:00 OPM is about 2014 there was more phone circling the globe that i had personally designed the iPhones were sold was pretty interesting time course today minority startups is represented by four years from now if individuals like me that had no entry into the technology sector are waiting in and I'm thankful for that I'm bagels for your time
• 25:00 - 25:30 [Applause]