So, hello everyone. I'm Vita and I'm going to present on demystified technology using creativity and storytelling. And uh let me start off with the introduction first.So we all have realized how important technology is in our day to day life right now, especially during the pandemic where um there's a lot of reliance on technology, especially when it comes to ordering groceries or even going up to internet to see for our day to day lives, getting medical knowledge as well because we want to make sure that you're up to date on all the latest advancements and all the latest knowledge.

According to Michael Dalstrom, a whopping 59% of the people go up to the internet in order to get their information regarding technology. Just breaking this down. Many people need any access to uh deeper access to technology. 34% of them rely on the television. 35% rely on the internet and a small 9% rely on magazine and other print media and others. 22% rely on um other sources. So this has actually highlighted how important it is to use mass media in order to transmit information in our day to day lives. And this information can be anything uh as simple as maybe order ordering groceries, do something as complex or as deep dive as maybe learning about cloud computing or learning about artificial intelligence or any of the other technologies. And like I said, a whooping 59% go up to the internet to see this information. Uh So I go to the mass media to see this information. This has made it even more important to use creativity to uh explain all these concepts because technology may not always be within our direct experience. For example, you may have an Amazon echo at home. You may know how to use Alexa, but at the same time, you don't know how it works, right? It's just an alien talking to you at the moment. So that is why it is important to use creativity. What is creativity?

It is the ability to view a situation or an object from two different frames of reference or two unrelated mattresses of thought. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is there's something that has a scheme of events that is there in your mind. For example, when you think about technology, you think about technical writing, you think about white papers or you think about articles, what if I tell you that I'm going to use something like storytelling or I'm going to use something like infographics or comics to explain technology really perplexing, right?

So what I have done is I've used two different frames of reference that is I've used creativity and storytelling and I have used technology and I brought them all together within your direct experience. So you understand what is going on, that is what creativity is all about.

Whenever we say someone is being creative, it just means they have brought two different spheres of experience together in one space or two unrelated mattresses of thought that you cannot really think intuitively about. However, this is very interesting and very important when we try to explain creativity or when we are trying to explain anything related to technology, I'll move on. So uh I, since I've been blabbering all this while, let me just go one step further and let me explain something using a story. So uh how many of you have heard of cloud computing? Maybe some of your experts out here, maybe some of you just beginners who want to learn more and maybe some of you are um let's say uh intermediate knowledge, you are college students, you are some people who would know this information but want to learn more. What I'm going to do is I'm going to use a very simple story to explain a cloud computing to you. So, have you uh I had a friend who uh was in the middle of a laundry session one day, she had a washing machine and a dryer at home. So while she was in the middle of the session, the machine broke down. What did she do?

She started panicking, running around. She was really upset. She didn't know what to do and it was very, very stressful for her because all her wet clothes were inside the uh machine. What did she do? She started frantically running around. She called a handyman. It was the time of the pandemic. No one was ready to come and repair her washer and dryer. So she went to something called a laundromat or a common laundry room in that she was able to find a lot of laundry machines. There were not 123, maybe a lot of laundry machines out there and she was able to use that to do her laundry problem solved. Right. She was really happy. She realized that she doesn't really have to maintain one laundry machine at home. She can just go to a laundromat, put in coins or put in money whenever she needs to use it. And if one breaks down, she has another or if it breaks down, it's not her headache to fix it. She doesn't have to keep calling maintenance in order to fix it. She can just request the owner to come and fix it for her. This is what we call cloud computing. What did I just do? I just explained cloud computing using a day to day example that most of you can relate to what is cloud computing. Cloud computing is the use of a public space or a public private space that has been provided by a, a cloud provider.

For example, Google or Amazon or Microsoft. They provide all these companies with a space or an infrastructure where they can host their own applications or their own data without having to worry about having a physical data center because there's so much of data that we have in every application. So for example, we are using um a streaming uh uh application right now. There's so much of data, all my presentations, everything, recordings, everything in there uh is there. So the imagine the amount of data this company has and if it has to maintain all of it in a physical data center, they have to pay for electricity, they have to pay for maintenance just like the laundry machine. But if they go up to Google cloud platform, they can go and tell Google, hey, we want to host our application on your infrastructure and we will just pay you for it. So they just have to pay for what they're using and their applications can run smoothly in the Google cloud infrastructure, electricity, maintaining the infrastructure load balancing. All of these complex things can be taken care of by Google or by Amazon.

If you choose Amazon web services, this is what is very similar analogous to the laundromat or the common laundries um or the common laundry space. This is what I have done. I've explained cloud computing using a very simple day to day example. I'll move on with another example.

Now, have you heard about the story of the three little pigs? If you haven't, I'm just going to explain this fast. So there were three little pigs who decided to go into the big forest to explore everything on their own. They wanted to live on their own, they wanted to explore, uh, what all was going on and they wanted to live an independent life. The first pig decided to build a house that was made of straw as you know, straw is really, really weak. And, uh, but the first pig did not care. The pig thought I just need a nice space to live. Right. Stroy is nice, warm and cozy. I can just stay inside without having to worry about anything. The second pig decided to build a house made of sticks. Sticks are a little more stronger than straw as in. You cannot just blow them down with a ho. But at the same time, it is not as strong, maybe as it should have been in a forest, considering the weather conditions and the kind of predators or the kind of animals who are moving around in the, uh, big bag forest. The third pig decided to spend a little more time on the house because he or she was a perfectionist and decide to build a house made of bricks, a brick house or a house that we live in right now is really sturdy.

You know, even if there's a storm coming outside, even if it's raining outside, it is really, really sturdy and, um, it can hold its ground. The three little pics were happy. They were just living. They were having a merry time and suddenly saw a big bad wolf lurking around. The wolf was hungry. The wolf was a predator. The first wolf tried to come to the f first pig and asked him to let him in. Knock, knock, let me in your house. I want to eat some goodies. I'm hungry. The first pig was thankfully monitoring the surroundings. Remember this word monitoring? The first pig was monitoring the surroundings and saw the wolf. He jumped inside the house and locked the door down. So he prevented the attacker from coming inside because he was monitoring the surroundings. But the wolf decided to use a trick. He huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down. Once the house was blown down, he could get inside and get all the goodies for himself. He had a nice little meal and he went out. The first little pig realized that any structure needs to be strong. It is not just for the moment, but you have to make it really, really strong. So other predators or any of the Attackers cannot get inside. You have to test it from within, let's say our first pig went dejected and sat with the second pig just discussing what happened. Suddenly the big bad wolf came again. The wolf came and said, ok, I am more. I'm hungry. My hunger is not fulfilled.

Can I get inside your house? Thankfully, the second pig was also monitoring the surroundings. And the second pig realized that there's a wolf who had just gotten into his friend's house. He quickly went inside and locked all of his goodies into a vault or what we call a, um, a really released, uh, secure place. So he just locked all of the goodies inside the house. He locked the house on time and the wolf could not get in. However, the wolf decided to use the same trick he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down. But you know what was different this time? Because the second pig had locked all of the goodies inside a vault or inside a safe, the wolf could not get in and because the wolf could not get in, uh, get access to the goodies. He tried to break the wall, he tried to throw it but it was so strong and secure that he could not get access to the foot, dejected. The wolf went back. Now, what did we learn here? The second pig was able to secure the goodies because he encrypted or he secured all of the goodies inside a vault. Even if the wolf got access inside the structure or inside the house.

This is why whenever we talk about any kind of uh data we've uh in, in our application, we need to make sure it's encrypted. What does encryption mean? Encryption means saving the data in a format which doesn't make it accessible to predators. Even if they try to get inside your application, it is they are able to secure that particular data. So if you remember sometimes when you're typing your passwords, they change into a really, really weird symbol that is what encryption is about. So even if an attacker or a hacker can gain access to your system, they won't be able to understand what all the data is. This is what the second pig done. The wolf was still hungry. He started lurking around and he went to the third house. He tried the same trick of blowing the house down, but this house was made of bricks. It's not easy to blow a house down that is made of bricks. Now, what did the third pig do? The structure was really, really strong. So because of the strength of the structure, the wolf could not blow the house down, but the wolf decided to get inside the house using the chimney. So he was able to get inside using the fireplace. But the third pig immediately lit the fireplace on fire and the wolf ran out because it was really, really warm for him to get inside. What did what happened in the third case. First, the third pig had a really, really strong structure.

So because the structure was strong, the wolf could not blow it down. However, the wolf found one opening or one access, which we call vulnerability in security terms. And using that one vulnerability, the wolf was able to get inside, see any structure, no matter how strong you think it is can have vulnerability. So it is very important to test your structure from the inside to make sure that there is uh no access for hackers to get inside the particular system that is called vulnerability or penetration testing. And we have testers in uh different companies who try to make this happen.

So the wolf was unable to get inside because the third pig lit the fireplace on fire. So he mitigated or he uh made sure the security attack did not happen. The goodies were safe. All the pigs were happy and they learned an important lesson. And what did you learn here? You learned cloud security. I used a simple story of three little bigs that I tell to my daughter every day to explain something as complex as cloud security. Remember, every technical experience may not be within our direct experience, but at the same time, it is uh influenced by our day to day lives. What we see or what we uh look at uh when we see technology, has somebody been inspired by what we do in our day to day lives. Airplanes have been inspired by birds. There are certain uh different quantum physics or theories that have been inspired by our nervous system. So all of this is always inspired by some kind of phenomena or some kind of daily event from happening. And it is uh very crucial to get all of it together, to make technology accessible to people from different backgrounds and different ages. Why? Stories? So what did I do right now? I use something very new to explain something that was f uh uh to explain something familiar.

I'm so sorry. I used something familiar to explain something that was completely new to you. I use the example of a laundromat or a laundry machine to explain cloud computing. And I use the story of the three little pigs you might, which you might have heard or it's just a story, something you can relate to to explain cloud security. This is the power of story and this is the power of creativity genre, whether it's a genre of what do I mean by genre here? Genre means a format. So whether this is a format of storytelling or this is a format of technical writing, it is always a negotiation rather than adherence to a codified form. What do I mean by that? That any kind of genre is actually something that uh we build as human beings. There's no hard and fast rule on technical writing it is not a gospel that's been written down for us, but it is something we have made for ourselves. And it is an artifact that is open to revision. You don't always need to explain. For example, quantum physics using a white paper, you can do that using uh day to day examples. At least you can get the fundamentals. But of course, the deep dive, you would need some math and everything.

But we can always use creativity to uh render these artifacts open to revision and their responses to various cultural and academic interactions. The way we understand technical writing today isn't the same. Uh If we look at uh technical writing 20 years back, we didn't have uh uh internet articles, we didn't have medium.com, we didn't have any of these uh different uh web articles. At that point. Everything was in the form of books on white papers. Now, so many of you are going up to the internet. So many of you are using uh different uh websites to gain information. So it is always a response to various cultural and academic interaction. And uh it's it changes with time. So it's important to make use of this fluidity in order to perpetuate knowledge, genre and culture. So your uh all these uh different technical writing pieces or technology are cultural artifacts that are shaped by individual and cultural interactions, like I said. So uh what, how I understand technical writing may not be the same as how maybe a scientist understands technical writing compared to how a teacher understands technical writing because it is so heavily influenced by culture or different places, different geographies, the way we write, uh technical writing in India may not be the same uh as how we understand technical writing in the United States or in UK because it is so heavily shared by individual and cultural interactions that gives us more leeway or more um or more uh capacity to explore our imagination and explain technology using storytelling and analogies and cloud technologies.

What did I do right now? I used analogy or um I use a story to explain cloud concepts. So according to Michael Dalstrom, whom I had alluded to earlier uh technologies outside of direct experience and people are dependent on others to interpret information. What do I mean by that? All of you may not be dealing with artificial intelligence on day to day life. All of you may not be interacting with servers or getting different um uh cloud experience in your day to day life, but you rely on someone else, maybe your teacher, your family member, maybe a mentor to get information because of this. Uh the extension uh stories are actually an extension uh of the the different experience that are live still through political systems, technology and different experiences. What do I mean by that? What I mean is any story that I'm reading out to you? Right? Now is just a part of your lived experience. Maybe I've never seen a laundromat in your life. That is perfectly fine. But you have seen some kind of public service, right? You have used buses, you have used trains and you know, I mean, having a car and having a and just using public transportation, what a huge difference it is out there.

So because stories are so accessible to us, it's very easy to use stories to and creativity to explain some technology or something which may not always be within our direct experience. Now, having said that there's some ethical considerations which we need to uh take into account when we are explaining uh different uh technical concepts using storytelling. So it's very important to engage your readers with your stories. You cannot just read out a story that maybe no one understands, like I cannot read out a Hindu Epic right now to an audience who do not have access to it. Like if I start reading a Ramayan to maybe a Christian, they might not understand what I'm saying. It's important to always tailor your stories and engage your readers with your stories and stay sensitive to the cultural forces and responses these stories evoke, we do not want to make people feel uncomfortable or uh evoke any kind of response that may be uncomfortable to people.

So it uh we need to be sensitive to the kind of uh illusions we use the kind of different connotations we use and we don't want to offend anyone or make anyone feel bad when we are telling our stories because stories have the potential to evoke emotions. We don't want people to feel that way. And finally, we have to present the information accurately without leaving much room for distortion of facts. Because stories are so open ended. Sometimes it's easy to sometimes misinterpret or not understand the information correctly. So that negotiation always needs to be taken into consideration. Uh And we have to make sure that there's not much room for distortion of facts, present a story, present something. Uh just link the your ethic. Uh I'm so sorry, link your techno technical knowledge to that particular story, but make sure there's a crisp line out there and you're not just leaving it open ended for people to interpret. And this is our ethical consideration we need to look into when we are trying to explain any kind of technology using creativity because creativity is vast, it makes imagination run wild. But at the same time, we have to make sure or we want to make sure that we are not um really uh making it more difficult for people rather than making it easier. And thank you so much for attending my presentation.

And I again apologize for the three minute delay in the beginning. And I'm Vita and you can visit my website Cloud demystified.com where I'm using storytelling to explain technical concepts or uh cloud concepts. And you can also connect with me on linkedin. I'm more active on linkedin.

I'm there on Twitter, but not very active. But you can definitely reach out to me on any of these mediums. And thank you so much. I hope this helped. Thanks a lot.