Public Gaming International May/June 2020

52 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • MAY/JUNE 2020 In many respects, there is little historical precedence to the COVID-19 crisis we are experiencing today. In spite of that, I think it is necessary to understand our current stage of macro-economic-technological evolution in an historical context. In the Information Age of the last quarter of the 20th century, we all became experts at gathering and disseminating information. Information was digitized, setting the stage for Digital Transformation, the age we are in now wherein data and information are effectively organized and harnessed to add concrete value to decision-making processes. In this Age of Digital Transformation, the full capabilities of digitization are being deployed to impart truly transformational impacts on how we shop, how we produce and consume things, and how we improve our lives. The digitization of the Information Age is to Digital Transformation as Machine Learning is to Artificial Intelligence or Big Data is to business intelligence. It is the raw material, the technological tools we need to transform the player experience and the industry. Technology and operational excellence are the enablers, the tools that enable the transformation. But it is the value that is added to the player experience and to the effectiveness of the operators that matters. One phenomenon of technological evolution is that these big historical stages become shorter and shorter. By any measure, the age of Industrialization lasted well over a hundred years. We are still in the early stages of the Digital Transformation age and can expect it to take longer to run its course than the Information Age because its purpose is so much more ambitious. The pandemic crisis is, though, radically accelerating the process of moving from the early-adopter stage to mass-market acceptance. For instance, you mentioned, Paul, that you had not even heard of Zoom until a few weeks ago; and that you don’t think of yourself as an early adopter of new technology. And yet now you love Zoom and are comfortable with it. Chances are that you likely would have adopted video- conferencing technology sometime in the future even if this crisis had not happened. Dr. Chris Dimitriadis Chief Executive Officer, INTRALOT SA Zooming into the Age of Digital Transformation The “new normal” is not so different than it was going to be already, with or without the pandemic crisis. Trends towards the new normal were already marching forward. The health and lock-down crisis has just accelerated our adoption of technology and the mass-market embrace of Digital Transformation.