ACM TechTalk: Angelica Lo Duca
View the recent ACM Techtalk, “How to Extract Meaningful Insights from Data,” presented by Angelica Lo Duca, Researcher at the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of the National Research Council, Italy.
Victor Yocco, UX Researcher at ServiceNow, will moderate the questions and answers session following the talk.
Following the previous talk, “Applying Cinematic Techniques to Data Storytelling” (March 5, 2025), several questions emerged about the stage that precedes data storytelling.
This talk will focus on practical, accessible methods for guiding the transition from raw data to insights that inform decisions. The session will present clear analytical strategies, illustrate their rationale and demonstrate how they can benefit researchers, engineers and data professionals across domains.
ACM Techtalk Archive available here
ACM ByteCast: Nicole Forsgren
In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Rashmi Mohan hosts software development productivity expert Nicole Forsgren, Senior Director of Developer Intelligence at Google. Forsgren co-founded DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA), a Google Cloud team that utilises opinion polling to improve software delivery and operations performance. Forsgren also serves on the ACM Queue Editorial Board.
Previously, she led productivity efforts at Microsoft and GitHub and was a tenure track professor at Utah State University and Pepperdine University. Forsgren co-authored the award-winning book Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps and the recently published Frictionless: 7 Steps to Remove Barriers, Unlock Value and Outpace Your Competition in the AI Era.
Here, Forsgren discusses her journey from psychology and family science to computer science, how she became interested in evidence-based arguments for software delivery methods, her role at Google, the relevance of the DORA metrics in a rapidly changing industry, and more.
ACM Bytecast Archive available here.
Featured ACM Member: Pei Cao
Pei Cao is a Vice President of Engineering at YouTube, the largest video platform in the world.
From 2016 to 2023 she served as the engineering leader for YouTube search, and since 2023 she has led the engineering team for Trust & Safety at YouTube.
While at Google prior to 2016, she designed a scalable system that enabled the platform to search hundreds of billions of web documents.
Cao has been granted multiple patents for technological and software advancements, including co-owning a recent patent for generating moving thumbnails for videos. An ACM member since 2013, Cao was recently named an ACM Fellow for contributions to web caching, search engine efficiency and information quality.
In her interview, she discusses YouTube keeping pace with expansion, users choosing video more than text to learn about topics, working with the Trust and Safety teams and more
Featured ACM Member: Marco Dorigo
Marco Dorigo is a Research Director for the Belgian Funds for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) and Co-Director of IRIDIA, the artificial intelligence lab at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He was recently named an ACM Fellow for “establishing swarm intelligence as a research field.”
Swarm intelligence is a subfield of artificial intelligence that studies how collective behaviour in natural systems – such as ant colonies and beehives – can inform computational and engineering approaches. Scientists examine how local interactions among many simple parts yield effective solutions without any centralised or hierarchical control.
Dorigo’s work has focused primarily on the engineering aspects of the field, including the design of robot swarms that cooperate to accomplish tasks beyond the capabilities of individual robots.
Dorigo has published widely in this area, including the book Ant Colony Optimization, (co-authored with Thomas Stützle), and numerous other books and journal articles. Dorigo is also Founding Editor of Swarm Intelligence, the principal research journal in the field.
This year he will serve as Honorary Chair of ANTS 2026, the 15th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence. In his interview, he discusses the benefits of nanonetworks, the integration of 5G and 6G technology with the Metaverse, the goals of the Technology Innovation Institute and more.