Field notes.
Why Medical AI Needs Security, Not Just Accuracy
Every medical AI pitch leads with accuracy. Almost none of them lead with security. That is exactly backwards if the goal is to put the thing near a real patient.
Can You Patent an AI Algorithm?
This is one of the most common questions I get now that I have a patent in AI. The short answer is that you usually cannot patent the math itself, but you can patent a specific, novel system that puts it to work. The distinction is the whole game.
How AI Is Changing Radiology
Radiology is where AI in medicine has gone furthest, and where the hype and the reality are easiest to confuse. Here is what is actually happening, from someone building in the space.
What the Patent Actually Does
People ask me what the patent is "for." The short version is that it is a way to let AI help read 3D medical scans without giving up privacy, accountability, or the doctor's judgment. The longer version is worth a few minutes, because the meaning is in how the pieces fit together.
AI and HIPAA: Using Patient Data Without Breaking the Rules
You cannot build useful medical AI without medical data, and medical data is some of the most regulated information there is. Here is how those two facts are reconciled, from a security perspective.
3D Medical Imaging, Explained
Before you can understand why AI in medical imaging is hard, you have to understand what a 3D scan actually is. It is not a picture. It is a volume, and that changes everything.
Building AI You Can Audit
There is a question every organization using AI in a serious setting will eventually face, usually at the worst possible moment. When a decision is challenged, can you reconstruct exactly what happened and who shaped it? If the answer is no, you do not really have a system. You have a liability.
Why a Human Stays in the Loop
The most important design decision in our system is not a clever algorithm. It is the choice to keep a person in charge and to let the machine learn from them.
What "Allowed" Actually Means
People hear "patent" and assume there are two states: you have one or you do not. There is an in-between, and it is the moment that actually matters.
Working With a Patent Attorney for the First Time
I have spent my career making technical calls under pressure. Co-inventing a patent taught me a different discipline: saying exactly what you mean, and being able to prove it.
From CTO to Co-Inventor
I have built and secured a lot of systems. Co-inventing one was a different thing entirely, and it pulled together everything I had learned in two careers I used to think of as separate.
Privacy-Preserving Diagnostics: AI on Medical Images Without Exposing the Patient
The hardest problem in medical AI is not the AI. It is the data. This is the part of our patent that comes straight out of my security career.
Probabilistic Masking, Explained Without the Jargon
The simplest way I can describe the core idea behind our patent is this: we taught the system where to look before we asked it what it saw.
AI Governance for Enterprises: A Practical Starting Point
Most AI governance fails in one of two ways: it bans everything, or it governs nothing. There is a better middle.
Ransomware Readiness for Leaders: Decisions to Make Before the Attack
The middle of an attack is the worst possible time to be making your most important decisions for the first time.
The First 90 Days as a New CISO
The instinct in a new security role is to act fast. The better instinct is to understand first.
Third-Party and Vendor Risk: The Quiet Way Companies Get Breached
Your security is now the average of every vendor you trust, and most companies have no idea what that average is.
How to Explain Cyber Risk to a Board (Without the Jargon)
If a director leaves your update unsure what to do next, the problem is the presentation, not the director.
The Future of Technology Leadership
The next great technology leaders will not be the best engineers. They will be the best connectors.
From Engineer to Leader: The Hardest Promotion You Will Ever Take
The skills that made you a great engineer are not the skills that will make you a good leader. Nobody warns you about that.
AI in Healthcare: Promise vs Reality
Healthcare AI has enormous promise. Promise is not a deployment plan.
Building Trust in Artificial Intelligence
Trust in AI will not come from a values statement. It comes from how you operate when something goes wrong.
The Cloud Security Mistake That Keeps Burning Companies
Moving to the cloud does not outsource your security. It splits it, and the seam is where companies get hurt.
My Journey From CTO to CIO to COO
Each title taught me the same lesson from a different angle: technology is never just technology.
How to Prove Cybersecurity Is Worth the Money
Security has the hardest value story in the building: when it works, the result is that nothing happens.
Zero Trust, Explained for Leaders Who Are Tired of the Hype
Zero trust is a genuinely good idea wearing a genuinely terrible amount of marketing.
Who Is Sajed Khan?
I get asked the short version a lot, so here it is, along with the part that actually explains the work.
Building a Security Culture That Actually Sticks
You cannot buy a security culture, and you cannot mandate one. You have to build it, and most organizations build it backwards.
Lessons From 25 Years in Technology Leadership
Twenty-five years in, the lessons that stuck are not the technical ones.
What Boards Really Need From Security Leaders
A board meeting is not a place to prove how much you know. It is a place to help people decide.
Why Most Cybersecurity Programs Fail
It is almost never the tools. It is the agreement underneath them.
The Story Behind Sarah and the Malware Fairy
We teach kids to look both ways before crossing the street. We barely teach them anything about the street they actually live on.
Why I Wrote CyberSecurity Metaverse
Every new digital world arrives selling wonder and quietly shipping new ways to be harmed.