Graham Baitson
Global Lead of Innovation Labs
Two Months, Two Awards
On 19th October 2018, McKesson Cork won “Multinational of the Year Award” at the IT@Cork Leaders Awards 2018. Rory Lankford, General Manager at McKesson Ireland, gave a great overview on how McKesson Cork have evolved since 2001 from a nine-employee software distribution company to McKesson’s first Enterprise Technology Hub outside of the United States. Just on month later, on the 22nd November, McKesson continued their success by winning the “Best Application of AI in a Large Enterprise” at the 2018 AI Awards.
2018 AI Awards
The AI Awards was setup by the non-profit organisation AI Ireland. The aim of these awards is to increase the public awareness of artificial intelligence by bringing academia and industry together to showcase and recognise the hard work and dedication in the field of AI within Ireland.
The AI Awards were split into different categories representing start-ups, academia, research and industry. McKesson Labs, a newly formed software innovation team within McKesson Technology which focuses on innovation, design, developer services and automation products, applied to the “Best Application of AI in a Large Enterprise” category for our range and vision of cyber-security applications aimed at protecting critical patient data.
Application Presentation
It was announced on the 20th September that McKesson were successful in being shortlisted to the final four. James Hurley, Director of Engineering and Graham Baitson, Lead of Innovation Labs travelled to the Gibson Hotel, Dublin to present their submission and answer grilling questions on all aspects of the application from the judges.
Award Ceremony
All the hard work had been done as it all boiled down to this moment. The moment that everyone had been waiting for. A packed house as over 200+ industry professionals, academics and enthusiasts came together to celebrate the very best of AI in Ireland at the inaugural AI Awards. Three incredibly strong contenders, gripped to the edge of their seats, waiting to snatch victory from within our grasp. Our faith now rested in the opening of that precious gold envelope. But who will be the winner? We anxiously looked at each other during the famous “and the winner is” pause, of what felt like an eternity. MCKESSON !!!!! We had done it. We had won. For more information on some of the though-provoking and inspirational talks from the day, you can view my LinkedIn Article.
Winning Application
As attackers start to utilise the vast array of complex tools and technologies that are available, cyber-attacks become more sophisticated, so much so, to the point where humans are struggling to identify safe from malicious data. McKesson feel that the integration of advanced technologies will enhance the security of patient critical data by accelerating the ability to distinguish and classify safe from malicious data.
By leveraging next-gen technology, ever-evolving intelligent solutions can be created with the aim to combat potential data breaches. By using a combination of software robotics, sentiment analysis and investigative computing, automation products can be developed to identify malicious threats and act as augmented AI sentinels. This ecosystem of cognitive agents can continue to strengthen McKesson’s defence perimeter by dynamically controlling the various internal protection mechanisms. By complimenting the above with Human in the Loop (HITL) and smart reinforced tagging, the overall security hygiene can be vastly improved, increasing the capability for the detection and awareness of malicious data activity, thus reducing incident response times. This is a clear example of applying advanced AI technologies to compliment automation in delivering improved security posture for a Fortune 7 company, whilst also gaining financial savings.
2019 AI Awards
The upcoming 2019 AI Awards are taking place on November 22nd 2019 in the Gibson Hotel, Dublin. McKesson are delighted to show our continued support and support this year’s event, along with some great names.
Judges
In addition to sponsoring this year’s event, James Hurley, Director of Engineering and Graham Baitson, Global Lead of Innovation Labs are on the judging panel for the 2019 AI Awards. We both found being part of the experts panel an extremely worthwhile experience and are looking forward to the winners being announced at the upcoming event.
RPA & Cognitive Finalists
Following in the footsteps of last year, McKesson are hoping to take home the AI Awards two years in a row. This year, McKesson are finalists in the Intelligent Automation – Best Use of RPA & Cognitive. Paul Hickey, Finance Shared Services Director and Liam Fraher, Business Solutions Lead travelled to Dublin to present the submission to the panel of judges for the finance work on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) tools has made processes easier for financial systems used across Europe. This award celebrates pioneering organizations that are pushing the boundaries in automation to achieve improved efficiency and employee/customer experience. Winners in this category will be making use of technologies like RPA, Machine Vision, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to reduce manual, repetitive tasks and free up humans to do more meaningful, complex and value-added tasks.
Up against the tough competition of Doosan Bobcat, ESB Networks and HealthBeacon, this announcement was sure to be a very close call. ESB Networks were successful in taking home the prize on the day. Congrats to the Finance Team for making the final 4 which is a huge endorsement of the great RPA work happening in McKesson Cork.
Final Thoughts
AI is paving the way to create applications that once seemed science fiction. But with these application comes the ethical implications that cannot be ignored. We are going to need the brightest minds to solve the future of the worlds problems and ensure that technology is used for the good of mankind. We are living in a challenging, exciting and also potentially scary time where there’s so much uncertainty to what our future has to offer. It’s important that we are all part of the future and have our say through our contributions. So until our next victory, Kathy McElligott, Executive VP, CIO / CTO of McKesson has perfectly described what can be achieved when hard work and determination meets collaboration.
“A perfect example of the innovation derived when great minds collaborate across teams and continents” – Kathy McElligott, Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer / Chief Technology Officer at McKesson
