Robert High retired in 2023, after 42 years at IBM. He is currently doing independent freelancing. Prior to his retirement, Rob was an IBM fellow, Vice President, and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for IBM's Edge Computing and Networking business. He had architecture and technical strategy responsibility for offerings that will enable a new generation of edge computing, where work is placed close to where data is produced, and actions are performed, and enterprise networking for connecting edge locations. Prior to that assignment, he was the CTO for IBM Watson, responsible for setting the technical strategy and vision for IBM's leadership in AI computing. High is recognized as a global technical leader, author, and evangelist, and was named an IBM Fellow in 2008 for his pioneering work in the field of SOA and his leadership on WebSphere.