Get to know us! At Carousel, we’re more than 1,300 #CarouselCrew members strong, spanning 27 locations across the country. Each month, we’re excited to share a glimpse of our talented team members.

Meet Ryan Carricato, Principal Consultant, based on Alameda Island in the San Francisco Bay. He is part of Carousel’s Technology Strategy Business Unit, which encompasses portfolio and solution development and enablement, pre-sales engineering, and customer advisory. In his role, he partners with teams across the organization to introduce, maintain, and support Carousel product and service offerings. Him and his teammates also serve as subject matter overlays for sales engineers designated for complex and enterprise opportunities.

We picked Ryan’s brain to learn more about what gets him excited for the future of tech, his perfect day, and what he loves most about being a part of Carousel.

Reach out to Carousel today to see how our talent, partner affiliations, and thousands of certifications can help you achieve your IT goals.

If you could choose one word to describe the Carousel culture, what would it be, and why?

Fresh. Carousel’s leadership and team members possess an uncanny ability and willfulness to take on new technologies. We are on the rise, flexible, energetic, focused, and will move mountains to do the right thing for our customers. We are privately owned so we can maintain nimbleness and agility, yet can rapidly scale thanks to our nationwide presence and talent.

What are you most excited for regarding the future of the technology industry?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be a force in technological progress for our digital, data-driven world. AI ASICs are being developed which embed machine learning, for example, to produce real-time “scene understanding” of photo and video capturing, thus comprehending the who, what, when, where, and even why of that imagery into the common-sense world model of objects and people, to truly understand what’s happening in a visual or audio scene. This is also called “intuitive physics” and includes reinforcement learning (RL) to learn behaviors by trial and error. This is something that we as humans take for granted but computers to-date have not fully grasped yet.

When you think about how AI can affect our daily lives, virtual assistants come to mind. Whether we interact with these assistants through voice (e.g. Siri) or tasks are completed on our behalf, AI is truly going to change the way we work. Imagine being in a meeting where an AI-powered voice assistant assigns action items as they pop up. If a topic is discussed in the meeting that none of the participants in the meeting are familiar with, the AI-assistant will locate and connect with the relevant expert via people data maps on that specific topic and join them to the call. The colleague brought into the call will be provided with past context by the assistant, which contains history and interactions of the team–both human and virtual–and catches the new team member up to speed with a current status update. While we are still in the beginning stages of voice assistants in our personal and work lives, robotic process and software task automation in the future looks both exciting and amazing!

What does a “perfect” day look like for you?

After waking up from a good night’s sleep (not too short, not too long), my love and I would sip coffee discussing our day and future goals together. By brain osmosis (no reading or verbal communication required) I would be automatically caught up on all the latest tech news while simultaneously playing video games with my significant other.

Mid-morning to afternoon I would go for a run. My outdoor trail would be structurally equivalent to that of a slightly bouncy treadmill with each step feeling like a tiny cloud under me. During the run I encounter mountains, beaches, forests, and city life with an official NBA basketball court I would break at and proceed to swish 20 three-points in a row. A mix of the latest music with 90s hip-hop plays continuously in the atmosphere, equipped with a real-time mood algorithm selecting and switching tracks without my intervention.

Awaiting the end of my workout is a luxury campground, complete with a hygiene facility and essentials warehouse where we give and help others in need, including eating and handing out healthy meals. We then spend time with family and friends laughing and sharing stories for a few hours. My beautiful partner and I have a romantic dinner together with unique and amazing aesthetics surrounding us, including a warm and relaxing sunset. We watch a movie we both love and enjoy. We spend the rest of the night together feeling blessed, hoping to do it all over again the next day.

Which technology innovation has made the most impact on your life?

By far, the Internet has had the most impact on my life. Having access to an almost unlimited number of books, music, videos, magazines, articles, and so much more has radically changed the way I’ve learned and grown. I remember when Google was in its early stages; I experienced the rise and fall of downloadable mp3s (Napster), the evolution of devices and ecosystems that have been created (iPod, iTunes, iCloud), the PDA/cell phone to smartphone transition (iOS, iPhone, Android). When it comes to technology I am officially, the over-stated trendy buzzword word, a “Millennial”.

What is your favorite part about being a #CarouselCrew member?

Carousel is an incredible experience! I’ve taken on new challenges and responsibilities I could not have imagined I would be doing a year ago today. I thrive in who I am at Carousel, which is a passionate technology enthusiast. My skills are used in the right way with the recognition as an industry leader, and opportunity to influence the direction the company is heading. I get to do what I love–solve problems and collaborate with amazing customers and team members who have taught me a lot more than they know they have.

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