Collective Knowledge

Developing novel applications based on deep tech (ML, AI, HPC, quantum, IoT) and deploying them in production is a very painful, ad-hoc, time consuming and expensive process due to continuously evolving software, hardware, models, data sets and research techniques.

After struggling with these problems for many years, we started the Collective Knowledge project (CK) to decompose complex systems and research projects into reusable, portable, customizable and non-virtualized CK components with the unified automation actions, Python APIs, CLI and JSON meta descriptions.

Our idea is to gradually abstract all existing artifacts (software, hardware, models, data sets, results) and use the DevOps methodology to connect such components together into functional CK solutions. Such solutions can automatically adapt to evolving models, data sets and bare-metal platforms with the help of customizable program workflows, a list of all dependencies (models, data sets, frameworks), and a portable meta package manager.

CK is basically our intermediate language to connect researchers and practitioners to collaboratively design, benchmark, optimize and validate innovative computational systems. It then makes it possible to find the most efficient system configutations on a Pareto frontier (trading off speed, accuracy, energy, size and different costs) using an open repository of knowledge with live SOTA scoreboards and reproducible papers.

The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action

A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions—engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning—to show how professionals really go about solving problems.The best professionals, Donald Schön maintains, know more than they can put into words. To meet the challenges of their work, they rely less on formulas learned in graduate school than on the kind of improvisation learned in practice. This unarticulated, largely unexamined process is the subject of Schön’s provocatively original book, an effort to show precisely how ”reflection-in-action” works and how this vital creativity might be fostered in future professionals.

Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge

Today’s economy is fueled by knowledge. Every leader knows this to be true, yet few have systematic methods for converting organizational knowledge into economic value. This book argues that communities of practice–groups of individuals formed around common interests and expertise–provide the ideal vehicle for driving knowledge-management strategies and building lasting competitive advantage. Written by leading experts in the field, Cultivating Communities of Practice is the first book to outline models and methods for systematically developing these essential groups. Through compelling research and company examples, including DaimlerChrysler, McKinsey & Company, Shell, and the World Bank, authors Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder show how world-class organizations have leveraged communities of practice to drive strategy, generate new business opportunities, solve problems, transfer best practices, develop employees’ professional skills, and recruit and retain top talent. Underscoring the new central role communities of practice are playing in today’s knowledge economy, Cultivating Communities of Practice is the definitive guide to fostering, designing, and developing these powerful groups within and across organizations.