You Must Have Integrity

Nomad Futurist

As a boy, Levy was enchanted and fascinated to see new buildings being constructed which ultimately led him to study engineering. In addition to his interest in how things “worked,” Levy was highly creative as a young person—playing guitar, painting, and drawing cartoons. He also designed packaging for toys manufactured at his parents’ toy factory as well as decorated stands for toy fairs.

Levy talks about the foundational experience of accompanying his parents every December as they gave away toys to children who were in hospital.

“I always admired my parents. They taught me to have integrity.”

While at university, Levy pursued courses of study in both civil and electrical engineering. Equipped with multiple degrees, he went on to work for a firm, then struck out on his own as an entrepreneur, forming a series of successful companies.

With the era of the telco deregulation in the 90s as well as the advent of the Internet, Levy became focused on data centers. Six years ago, he made another foray into academia, this time pursuing a PhD doing research on data center management.

As a professor, Levy recounts how he has had to address his students’ misconceptions about the relationship between data centers and the cloud.

“It’s really simple. The cloud is just really interconnected data centers on the ground. Everything is on the ground!”

Levy is enthusiastic about the potential for academia to demystify critical infrastructure and sees the tremendous demand for both graduates and technicians to work in the industry.

“We need people to design, provide architecture, engineering, human resources, legal, finance… everything will relate to the data center.”

Levy encourages young people to follow their passion, to pursue what they want to pursue.

His final advice:

“You must have integrity… we have to give back to society when we have been blessed with many gifts. We must help others.”

Levy is a seasoned engineer and data center subject matter expert. He currently leads the physical infrastructure research in UPS and thermal management at OMDIA. With over 25 years of professional experience in the industry, Levy has a diverse background in planning, design, management, risk assessment, and strategic consulting. He has been director and founding partner of engineering companies and has dedicated more than 15 years to data center infrastructure projects.

Levy’s research and vision center on improving data center performance while reducing risk, through the use of real-time key indicators, AI-enabled analytics, and automated actionable recommendations. As a university professor, Moises has taught electrical engineering and data center courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Moises holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, and Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical and Civil Engineering. He is a contributor to international standards, the author of numerous publications, and a speaker at conferences including Data Center World, BICSI, and 7x24 Exchange.