FASTforward’09 Interview: Bjorn Olstad, Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft and CTO, FAST
by Joshua-Michéle Ross
Bjørn kicked off the event at FASTforward’09 by noting the wide array of participants – 29 countries are represented here, over 100 C-level executive (and one chief nerd officer – I kid you not). Overall it is a packed event, which speaks to the importance of search as a technology that drives competitive advantage. In this interview, Bjørn defines what he means when he says “search” and why it is valuable to the enterprise during hard economic times.
BIO: Bjørn Olstad, Ph.D., serves as the chief technology officer of FAST and is a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer. Before joining FAST, Dr. Olstad held key positions within General Electric Medical Systems, including director of research and development for Cardiac Ultrasound. He has served as a professor in computer science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he was awarded the youngest professorship ever.
