These range from cloud architects and cloud administrators, and security experts. "Datacentre management is completely different in a cloud environment," he says. "There has never been a better time to be an IT professional. Our industry is changing into an information economy and you have all the opportunities to get out of the backroom to the board." "Talk about the power of information business to help our companies make decisions to thrive in this new digital world," he suggests. For futurist Tim Longhurst, a critical step for ICT leaders is to "look at how the world is changing and what the opportunities are". Major challenges that were not solved by previous generations can be solved by technology, says Longhurst, who also spoke at the EMC forum. For a CIO, he says, it is not about cost cutting anymore, but "being visionaries", seeing the world as it could be through technology. "What is going on out there, what are the possibilities? We understand the technology, we need to be visionaries in our organisations. Transformation won't happen without our output." He says this type of transformation is exemplified by the experience of Salman Khan, a hedge fund analyst in Boston who posted the videos of his tutorials to his niece on YouTube. Khan had the option to share it privately with his niece or share his lessons with the world, he chose the latter. Longhurst says over millions of people have already viewed his video lessons on YouTube. He has since quit