EDITOR’S NOTE: 4Q4 IS A WEEKLY FEATURE THAT WILL BE POSTED EVERY FRIDAY, SPEAKING WITH A LOCAL NEWSMAKER ABOUT TECHNOLOGY. MOVING FORWARD, THESE WILL BE POSTED ON FRIDAYS.
Orlando’s tech community has quite the luxury with a tech-forward-thinking organization like the Orlando Magic in town.
Every year, the NBA team is recognized as one of the league’s most innovative.
That innovation and recognition feel even better when the team has some success, as it has had this year. The Orlando Magic is on pace to make the playoffs for the first time since 2020 and could win its first playoff series since Dwight Howard led the charge in 2010.
For now, however, the team will work on its technology presence. The Orlando Magic’s Innovation Challenge returns for its third year n Jan. 19.
The event annually brings Orlando’s tech community together to tackle some of the Magic’s most-pressing tech-based projects.
Orlando Tech News reached out to Rajiv Menon of Informuate, one of the event’s lead organizers, to talk about the challenge and other tech-based topics. Check out his throughts on AI and other topics below.
What technology are you most looking forward to see develop in 2024 and why?
1. Clearly, the most exciting technology for 2024 is artificial intelligence and large language models. ChatGPT and related offerings like Bard, Jasper, Co-Pilot, etc., will transform how people use it. Coding, content-creation, legal writing, scriptwriting and all kinds of occupations are going to be impacted. We at Informulate and HyperValidation are investing heavily in this tech.
The Innovation Challenge is this month. Why did this event start?
Because innovation is a team sport. Some kinds of innovation are about defining problems the right way and bringing people from diverse backgrounds together to solve them. This type of challenge makes perfect sense for large brand organizations that not only want to accelerate innovation but also want to engage the community, bring visibility to their growth trajectories, and attract high-quality talent. OMIC is in its 3rd year, and it is going from strength to strength as it builds on past success.
If you had to select a New Year’s resolution for your relationship with tech, what would it be and why?
For me, it would be agility. As we can see from 2023-24, AI/LLM is disrupting practically every industry. And the pace of that disruption is accelerating. So every business needs to be agile and focus on reducing time to market for new products.
The innovation challenge is a mix of sports and tech. What sports technology is your favorite innovation?
When it comes to sports and tech innovation, eSports is up there, as is the impending wave of broad acceptance for augmented and virtual reality. eSports are projected to hit $3 billion in revenue this year and with the global gaming industry revenue already bigger than music and movies combined, it will soon overtake traditional sports, as well. Established titles like Madden and NBA2K are just the beginning. We are on the cusp of all kinds of new innovations for mixed reality spectator experiences, deeper engagement, and monetization of sports and eSports including all new tech-driven sports like drone racing, robot fighting and more.