Vanguard Magazine

44 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2021 www.vanguardcanada.com gamE ChANgeR See the full interview online Q What is your role at your organization today? I specialize in disruptive innovations caused by the combination of artificial intelligence and pervasive networking. I am CEO of RTI, the No. 1 software framework for autonomous systems. RTI is enabling a new generation of intelligent distributed systems, boldly seeking to transform entire industries. RTI has experience working in appli- cations across Automotive, Transpor- tation, Energy, Medical, Defense, and Industrial Control. One of my main re- sponsibilities is to define and defend the culture and hire and encourage great people. RTI is certified as a Great Place to Work and holds a top rating on Glass- door. Q What was your most challenging moment? From a leadership perspective, perhaps it was when we were involved with the Grand Coulee dam repurposing project. Grand Coulee is the largest power plant in North America. The goal was to re- purpose the dam from "base load" (just generating power) to an intelligent sys- tem responsible for dynamically balanc- ing the entire Western Grid so the con- tinent could support more renewable sources like wind and solar. However, we had technical challenges and political roadblocks that nearly caused the grid to fail, causing the continent to literally go dark. RTI worked for years without funding to save the dam. This experi- ence led to RTI's culture of "we don't let customers fail"...which led us to our current opportunity. Today, RTI helps major projects, many costing billions, to transform their operation or build new designs that leverage the power of distributed intelligence. These systems need base software architecture and ven- dors with deep experience that will not let them fail. We sell trust. Q What is the one thing that has you most fired up today? The advent of AI is the most epic transi- tion of our time. People fear the societal impact of this power on job opportunity, social media, and Big Brother. That's a valid fear, but this newfound capability also offers unprecedented hope for the future. Autonomy is the best opportu- nity in generations to make our world greener, safer, healthier, faster, and more productive...to quite literally make the world run smarter...and better. Q What is a habit that contributes to your success? I believe in "outsight". Outsight is any learning or information you can get from outside your echo chamber, espe- cially your company. This can come from customers, books, consortia, analysts, papers, mentors, or many other things. I get some form of outsight every week and insist my management team does the same. Q What people or organizations do you believe best embody the innovation mindset? I see innovation everywhere, but the most impactful innovations combine two or more disciplines to rethink how things should work. Universities like Stanford and MIT produce the best engineers because they encourage the study of both an engineering discipline and computer science. Jobs combined Internet and mobility, computers and movies, music and devices. Mathworks combines matrix math and programming. That's why RTI puts AI together with networking. Nobody else does that. Q What technologies, business models, and trends will drive the biggest changes in your industry over the next two years? Long term, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the only trend that really matters. Many systems have a 25 year or longer design lifetime. Within that lifetime, CPUs will improve by a factor of 100,000x. Even in the next two years, this has to be the key to every new and developing proj- ect in the industry. Any architecture that doesn't target using this capability as its prime goal is already obsolete. Of course, AI lives on – thrives on – data. Putting that data at the center of the architecture is the key trend in the de- fense and autonomy markets. Thus, data centricity is the most important trend in intelligent defense system design. In software business models, recurring revenues are the proven way to ensure vendor/customer ongoing partnership. I am a fan of aligning economic drivers to the relationship goals. Recurring licensing is by far the best match. Open source is important, but open source is a low-cost "follower" business model. Open source cannibalizes markets; it doesn't colonize them. Many misun- derstand this, leading to mismatched mo- tives, funding dead-end or lopsided prod- ucts, and expensive failures. In markets like autonomy, open source will only be a significant player after the architectural basis is well understood. Q What is your parting piece of advice? The key to leadership is to know what people want, and then be what they want to follow. StAn Schneider chief execuTive officer ReAl-Time innovATionS (RTi)

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