Tech Can't Save Us: Recent Episodes
Literal Humans
Tech Can't Save Us is a tech for good podcast from Literal Humans, a creative marketing agency. Hosted by Paul David, the Co-Founder of Literal Humans, Tech Can't Save Us is all about the good, the bad and the ugly of the tech for good sector.
Paul will invite guests on to every podcast episode to talk about how tech makes us better people and how it can enhance life on earth for all creatures - but also about how tech can harm society, and what we can do to fix it.
Through open conversations with representatives from Adidas, Google, Buffer, Facebook and smaller emerging companies like myNexus and The Black Men's Book Club, Tech Can't Save Us aims to give an honest insight into the Tech for Good sector - what it's doing well, and what could be improved.
Find out more about Literal Humans and our work with mission-driven brands, tech for good start-ups and non-profits at http://literalhumans.com.
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Michael Pytel, Technology Leader & Director of VASS, a global digital transformation group of nearly 5,000 experts operating across 26 countries, built to help large organisations simplify complexity and turn technology into measurable business impact. Through its THINK – BUILD – SCALE approach and partnerships with both SAP and Google Cloud, VASS is assembling the intelligent ERP layer that moves enterprises past simple automation and into genuinely agentic operations.
They discuss where the real line sits between a traditional ERP system and what Michael describes as an intelligent ERP, and why the enterprise conversation has moved on from automation. He explains how VASS is building agentic AI for functions like procurement and inventory systems designed to work alongside people as trusted teammates rather than sit behind them as tools. Michael also unpacks how the connection between SAP Business Data Cloud and Google BigQuery helps break down the data silos that have quietly capped what enterprise AI can actually deliver.
The conversation covers the VASS@1BILLION strategy and what it takes to reach €1 billion in revenue by 2028: eleven acquisitions including Zington, Intelygenz and Movetia to bring under one culture and technical vision, a North American expansion where SAP Business AI adoption looks different again, and the balance between funding AI research and delivering long-term value. Michael also shares the lessons of more than 25 years in the SAP ecosystem , co-founding NIMBL and then moving from startup founder to intrapreneur inside a global group, authoring books on SAP HANA and SAP Fiori security, and why that technical depth makes him both an advocate for and a sceptic of low-code AI tooling.
Find more about VASS here: https://vasscompany.com/
Follow Michael Pytel here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpytel/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Ahikam Kaufman, Co-Founder and CEO of SafeBooks AI, a San Francisco-based platform building the world’s first financial data graph for the office of the CFO and Chief Accounting Officer. SafeBooks connects fragmented data across CRM, billing, and ERP systems into a single, agent-ready layer that automates complex contract reviews and protects revenue recognition integrity from contract to cash.
They discuss how the office of the CFO has been left behind by the automation wave that reshaped sales, marketing, and support, with finance teams still stitching data together by hand across systems that were never designed to talk to each other. Ahikam explains how the SafeBooks financial data graph creates a unified, automated audit trail that reconciles every transaction, executes booking and billing policies on each one, and documents the work, turning the finance professional from a preparer into a reviewer. With SOC 1 certification and audit-readiness by design, the platform shifts revenue assurance from periodic, reactive close-process checks to continuous, real-time control, all without ripping out the systems companies already run.
The conversation covers the realities of selling specialised software into conservative finance teams: why the heavy lifting is proving the technology on a customer’s own data, how strategic partnerships with accounting firms and ERP providers can accelerate go-to-market, and why Ahikam believes B2B buying is ultimately emotional. He also shares the lessons behind building SafeBooks, drawing on a career that includes co-founding Check (acquired by Intuit) and senior finance roles at HP, Mercury, and Intuit, from hiring people smarter than you in every domain to staying relentless about adapting as AI rewrites the SaaS playbook and enterprises start demanding tailored solutions over cookie-cutter products.
Find more about SafeBooks AI here: https://safebooks.ai/
Follow Ahikam Kaufman here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahikam-kaufman-688310/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Erika Anderson and Andalib Samandari, Founder and AI Researcher of Building Humane Technology, a grassroots movement and public benefit corporation working to make humane design the default rather than the exception. Together they co-created HumaneBench, an open-source framework measuring whether AI models respect human well-being, and how easily those protections collapse under pressure.
They discuss how the movement grew out of Tristan Harris’s Center for Humane Technology and a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to build technology that makes people feel cared for, connected, and present? Andalib explains how the team turned that into a working benchmark, using synthetic scenarios, a rubric scored from minus one to one, and LLM judges validated against manual scoring, all grounded in eight humane principles. The findings are sobering: across 15 leading models, most nudged users toward prolonged engagement, and 67% could be manipulated into giving harmful advice through adversarial prompting.
The conversation covers how HumaneBench is moving from research into practice, running live in production code bases like Storytell.ai, where humane evals show product teams how their LLM actually treats users and have even shaped new features. Erika and Andalib make the case for nutrition facts for AI and a certified-humane standard, and argue regulation has a role to play, citing the EU’s line that AI is less regulated than a San Francisco food truck. Throughout, they return to Donella Meadows’ idea of dancing with systems: that the biggest leverage point isn’t a single villain to defeat, but the culture and paradigms we build technology inside.
Find more about Building Humane Technology here: https://humanebench.ai/
Follow Erika Anderson here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikamanderson/
Follow Andalib Samandari here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andalibsamandari/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Paula Chiocchi, Founder & CEO of Outward Media, a B2B data and digital marketing company that helps firms turn data into revenue. Over 27 years, Paula has built one of the world’s largest SMB databases and driven hundreds of millions in revenue for Fortune 500 clients, including more than 300 million for a single client in one year, through high-quality contact data and multi-channel marketing solutions.
They discuss how B2B marketing has shifted from breadth and depth toward pinpoint accuracy, and why the true measure of data is whether the right contact is matched to the right company, title, and function. Paula explains Outward Media’s concept of the “B2B Living File,” a model of constant, automated maintenance that keeps client data fresh through monthly cleanses and replacements rather than the static snapshot licensing many providers still rely on. She also unpacks the company’s industry-first 95% email validity guarantee and the 15-plus verification steps behind it.
The conversation explores the growth roadblocks facing data-driven marketers, from siloed teams and eroding CRM data to the rising tide of programmatic fraud, and the shift from lead volume to genuinely qualified leads. Paula also reflects on her journey as a leader and entrepreneur: her passion for mentorship, two decades in a Vistage CEO peer group, and a guiding belief that silence in a meeting means agreement. She closes on the technology that excites and concerns her in equal measure, AI, and why blending a Zen perspective with the high-stakes world of B2B marketing keeps the work both grounded and human.
Find more about Outward Media here: Outward Media
Follow Paula Chiocchi here: LinkedIn
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Arnon Shimoni, VP of Growth at Solvimon, a next-generation billing monetization platform. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Solvimon is designed to help modern SaaS companies navigate hybrid business models and the shifting landscape of usage-based pricing.
They discuss the evolution of software billing, analyzing why traditional seat-based models are giving way to usage-based options as companies look for new ways to grow revenue. Arnon highlights the dangerous traps and complexities of leaning too heavily into credits and tokens, which can disincentivize product usage and detach customer value from the actual compute cost.
The conversation dives deep into the “holy grail” of monetization for autonomous AI agents: pricing per outcomes rather than inputs. Arnon shares real-world examples, including how a mortgage-processing agent aligns vendor and bank motivations through shared incentives. They also tackle the technical and financial hurdles that modern CFOs face regarding forecasting and compliance and why a flexible, unified revenue stack is crucial for scaling businesses.
Finally, Arnon outlines Solvimon’s regional growth strategy and his bullish outlook on the European tech ecosystem. He notes why European companies have historically been underserved by rigid American payment tools and wraps up with a unique go-to-market lesson: viewing invoices as critical, underappreciated touchpoints to showcase culture and human value.
Find more about Solvimon here: www.solvimon.com
Follow Arnon Shimoni here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnon-shimoni
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Ignacio Berardi, Co-Founder and CEO of Rexi, an AI-native financial operations platform rebuilding the infrastructure layer beneath modern fintech. Rexi automates reconciliation, accelerates financial close, and replaces fragile manual back-office workflows with intelligent agentic systems — building what Ignacio describes as the operating system for modern finance.
They discuss how the rapid proliferation of application-layer fintech providers has created a fragmented, modular financial stack in which money movement passes through multiple abstraction layers, making end-to-end transaction tracking increasingly difficult and resulting in systemic balance-sheet write-offs of one to two percent of total payment volume — a problem the Synapse collapse made viscerally real when over $160 million in user funds went unaccounted for overnight. Ignacio explains how Rexi approaches this as fundamentally a coordination problem: ingesting data files from disparate systems, parsing and standardising them with AI at speed, and deploying agents trained across the full portfolio of customer edge cases to investigate discrepancies and close out the long tail of exceptions that human teams routinely write off.
The conversation covers Rexi’s go-to-market approach — founder-led, in-person sales targeting operators rather than crowded enterprise conferences, with six-to-eight-week forward-deployed implementations designed to build trust inside critical financial infrastructure. With a seed round targeted for Q3 2026 and the team approaching 50k MRR, Ignacio explains why brand and relationships, not product features, will be the lasting competitive differentiator in an AI-commoditised market. He also shares hard-won leadership lessons drawn from Bain, Bitso, and Harvard Business School, and why no amount of prior experience truly prepares a founder for the consequential, real-time decisions of building a company from scratch.
Find more about Rexi here: https://Rexi.finance
Follow Ignacio Berardi here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-Berardi/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Kim Smith, Founder and CEO of Health Evolve, a South Carolina-based femtech company building patient-centred technologies at the intersection of care and culture. Kim founded Health Evolve in 2023 following the loss of her daughter Lauren to HELLP Syndrome, naming the company’s flagship platform in her honour.
They discuss why the patient’s voice is the most underrated lever in closing health equity gaps, and how Health Evolve co-designed Lauren — with birthing women, nurses, and physicians across urban and rural communities — to be genuinely inclusive. Lauren supports women across a full 100 weeks of care, from preconception through early parenting, combining remote blood pressure and glucose monitoring, an AI-driven personalised education curriculum, and a telemedicine suite with real-time translation to fill the critical gaps between a high-risk woman’s average six hours of provider contact throughout pregnancy.
The conversation covers how Health Evolve is navigating long enterprise sales cycles by building a Research and Community Partnerships division as a deliberate profit centre, with an active clinical validation study at South Carolina’s largest academic hospital and a data partnership with the University of South Carolina drawing on 50 years of birth data. Kim also shares leadership lessons from 18 years spanning Tenet Healthcare’s 24 national markets, and her approach to protecting mental health whilst carrying a life-or-death mission — including her first-ever Power 24, a quarterly solo reset she’s making non-negotiable.
Find more about Health Evolve here: https://healthevolve.co
Follow Kim Smith here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimsmithceo/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Julio Martinez-Clark, co-founder and CEO of BioAccess, the world's first contract research organization (CRO) purpose-built specifically for first-in-human (FIH) clinical trials. They discuss the "valley of death" that claims roughly 90% of healthcare startups, which frequently fail not because their technology is flawed, but because they run out of capital before securing vital clinical data.
Julio explains how BioAccess helps medtech, biopharma, and radiopharma startups bypass these bottlenecks by compressing clinical timelines by 40% through efficient, predictable site selection and activation in regulatory-friendly Latin American markets. The conversation covers BioAccess's self-funded growth strategy, common pitfalls made by first-time founders, and how providing low-income patients with compassionate, advanced healthcare brings dignity back to clinical research. Julio also reflects on his time writing his book, La Cebolla de Pandora, and how that period of reflection shaped his deep commitment to prioritizing human impact over profit.
Healthcare startups face a high monthly burn rate averaging $300,000 to $400,000, making rapid first-in-human clinical data crucial to surviving the "valley of death" before they can raise more capital or secure an exit. Cost-efficiency in Latin American clinical settings does not mean lower standards, as all trials strictly adhere to the international ICH and GCP guidelines required by the FDA and EMA.
By leveraging an extensive network of hospitals and regulatory-friendly environments in countries like Panama and El Salvador, BioAccess achieves rapid site activation and patient recruitment.
Beyond the B2B framework, accelerating these trials democratizes access to life-saving medical innovations for lower-income patient populations who otherwise lack treatment options.
Find more about BioAccess here: https://www.bioaccessla.com
Follow Julio Martinez-Clark here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliomartinezclark/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Vojtech Oravec, the founder of Ranketta, an innovative platform helping companies measure and optimize their visibility within AI-driven search engines and answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity. With a deep background as an AI research scientist and enterprise product manager, Vojtech is now building the tools brands need to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
They discuss the fundamental shift from traditional Google searches to AI-generated answers, exploring why direct answers are replacing the classic "10 blue links" and what this behavioral shift means for modern brands. Vojtech outlines the critical mistakes companies make when trying to establish AI visibility, such as completely blocking AI bots, relying on inaccurate API approximations, and focusing on brand visibility over more crucial product-level metrics.
The conversation dives deep into the world of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and how Ranketta bridges the visibility gap by scraping actual user interfaces to analyze citations, influential keywords, and product recommendation rates. Vojtech provides actionable insights for marketing teams, ranging from content enrichment with frequently asked questions to targeting specific AI-preferred keywords, while explaining how Ranketta integrates directly into existing workflows like Google Analytics and Shopify.
Vojtech also shares his strategic growth plans following Ranketta's recent €1 million pre-seed funding round, including scaling their dynamic team, achieving key revenue milestones, and establishing a crucial US beachhead to capture the fast-evolving AI shopping market. Finally, he reflects on his personal journey from navigating high-level AI research alongside famous scientists to becoming a tech founder at the cutting edge of the next generation of the internet.
Find more about Ranketta here: https://ranketta.com
Follow Vojtech here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vojtech-oravec-091409236/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Nick Lenten, founder and CEO at Ahead Health and a veteran of the tech world who previously served as head of product at Google. Ahead Health is on a mission to build Europe’s AI-driven prevention platform, offering advanced health checkups in under 60 minutes to bring elite-level preventative care to the general public.
The conversation explores the fundamental gaps in the European healthcare model, where a scarcity of expensive doctors and an aging population often force a focus on treating existing symptoms rather than long-term prevention. Nick explains how Ahead Health is tackling these challenges by democratizing the high-end “concierge” medical experience—typically reserved for the top 0.1%—through process optimization, AI, and extensive blood and imaging panels.
They dive into the strategic advantages of the Swiss market, noting its high talent density and a population already accustomed to paying out-of-pocket for healthcare, which allows for faster innovation. Nick also shares his approach to building a “customer-obsessed” health product that removes the friction and clinical clunkiness of traditional systems, aiming instead to create a “minimum lovable product” that acts as a personalized health companion.
Finally, Nick offers insights into the “super scary” emotional journey of a founder, the current VC climate for consumer health, and his “builder” leadership philosophy that prioritizes shipping real products over endless meetings. He envisions Ahead Health eventually becoming the center of gravity for a user’s preventative healthcare journey by connecting them seamlessly to the local medical ecosystem.
Find more about Ahead Health here: https://www.aheadhealth.com/ch/en/
Follow Nick Lenten here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nlenten/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Ben Perreau, founder and CEO of Parafoil, a leadership intelligence platform that uses cognitive science and psycholinguistics to help managers evolve into exceptional leaders. They discuss the current crisis in management, where a “great flattening” of organizational structures has significantly increased the cognitive load on individuals who often wait an average of 10 years after their first promotion to receive any formal leadership training.
Ben explains how Parafoil addresses this gap by sitting unobtrusively in meetings to gather conversational data, providing managers with actionable feedback and behavioral insights based on their real-world interactions. The conversation covers Parafoil’s commitment to radical privacy and information security, ensuring that while the platform helps organizations track cultural change, individual transcripts and data remain private to the manager.
Ben also shares insights from the foundational work of James Pennebaker on psycholinguistics, revealing how the choice of “junk words” like pronouns and prepositions can uncover a leader’s cognitive state and team cohesion. Finally, they explore why “soft skills” are becoming the hardest constraint for performance in an AI-abundant world and how instrumentation for leadership is as essential today as a cockpit is for a pilot.
Find more about Parafoil here: https://parafoil.co/
Follow Ben Perreau here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perreau/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Shawn Owen, CEO of SALT Lending, a pioneer in the blockchain space since 2016. As a serial entrepreneur with over 26 years of experience and a passion for Bitcoin dating back to 2011, Shawn provides a unique perspective on bridging the gap between legacy finance and the digital asset revolution.
They discuss the fundamental problems SALT aims to solve for long-term Bitcoin holders, specifically the ability to access liquidity and preserve wealth without being forced to sell their assets. Shawn explains how the company survived the "Wild West" of the crypto lending market by sticking to core principles and navigating complex regulatory shifts to become a regulated lender in 2026.
The conversation covers SALT's innovative product features, such as the Stabilization and Shield tools, which are designed to protect borrowers from the volatility of flash crashes by providing an "extension of time" rather than immediate liquidation. Shawn also sheds light on the company's strategic move to convert $64 million of debt into Series A shares, an alternative recapitalization structure that avoided the traditional bankruptcy process and strengthened the firm's position compared to fallen peers like FTX.
Looking toward the future, Shawn shares insights on the upcoming "Bitcoin Advantage" book and the potential for Bitcoin and real estate to merge as collateralized assets over the next decade. From his roots in the hospitality industry to building global fintech, Shawn reflects on the human element of technology, the importance of "obsessing over the customer," and why a transparent, decentralized financial system is essential for a better human experience.
Find more about SALT Lending here: https://saltlending.com
Follow Shawn Owen here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-owen-052a6153/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Taran Lent, CTO of Illumia. A leader in enterprise-grade cloud software, Illumia was born from the strategic merger of Transact Campus and Seaboard, two powerhouses focused on revolutionizing commerce and credentialing solutions. They discuss the unique challenges of modernizing the tech stack for mission-critical legacy industries, including higher education, healthcare, and corporate campuses. Taran explains how Illumia defines the modern connected campus by doing the hard things, such as managing high-stakes security, complex payment reconciliations, and instant mobile accessibility, so their clients can focus on their core missions.
The conversation covers the philosophy of software craft and how prioritizing engineering standards and invisible technology attracts top talent while creating long-term velocity. Taran shares the story behind Illumia’s milestone global integration with Apple, Google, and Samsung to deliver frictionless digital identity and payments via mobile credentials. He further explores the role of AI as a force multiplier used to eliminate high-toil, low-joy tasks, such as automatically reconciling millions of dollars in campus transactions or managing complex nutritional data in hospitals. Finally, Taran provides insights on leading at scale, maintaining a startup innovation pace through empowered autonomous teams, and why finding deep conviction is the key to solving persistent problems.
Find more about Illumia here: https://illumiatech.com/ Follow Taran Lent here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taranlent/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Ivan Gekht, CEO of Gehtsoft USA, a prominent leader in software delivery for highly regulated environments. Ivan’s professional journey is remarkably unique, beginning as a Siberian aerospace engineer before he transitioned into the high-stakes world of fintech and trading. As the creator of the New York Stock Exchange’s first-ever FX monitor, Ivan brings a systems-first philosophy to technology that prioritizes durability and accountability over simple speed.
The conversation explores why complex systems benefit from an aerospace mindset, a discipline where engineers assume failure is inevitable and design the system specifically to survive it. Ivan points out that the most significant modern failures often result from the interactions between components that appear to work perfectly in isolation. This perspective is critical in industries like regulated trading, where a bad release can lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses within minutes.
Paul and Ivan also discuss the delicate balance between rapid growth and operational stability. Ivan warns that modern tools like venture capital, the cloud, and AI act as powerful amplifiers that can lead to uncontrollable growth if the underlying foundation is broken. While he acknowledges that AI assistants can provide incredible performance gains for senior developers, he notes they can also help junior developers create a “mess” much faster if used without a proper understanding of architecture.
The episode further dives into the reality of leading remote teams and Ivan’s “unpopular opinions” shared through the Agile Bulletin. He argues that remote work typically fails not due to physical distance, but because ambiguity scales faster than trust, requiring leaders to be far more explicit and communicative. Ultimately, Ivan emphasizes that true innovation is built on a foundation of dependability, noting that any complex system that works was invariably evolved from a simple system that worked.
Find more about Gehtsoft USA: https://gehtsoftusa.com/
Follow Ivan Gekht: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-gekht/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Jonatan Allback, Co-founder and CEO of NjiaPay, a payments-as-a-service company simplifying online commerce across the African continent. With nearly 15 years of fintech experience, Jonatan is now applying big-tech growth principles to one of the world's most exciting emerging markets. They discuss the immense hurdles of operating in a region with 54 sovereign countries, over 40 currencies, and more than 30 different central bank switches. Jonatan explains how NjiaPay acts as a technical layer between merchants and traditional Payment Service Providers (PSPs) to optimize orchestration and ensure redundancy in volatile infrastructure.
The conversation explores Jonatan's "aha" moment when he realized how legacy infrastructure in certain markets felt like a step back in time, inspiring the creation of a one-API solution to solve operational nightmares for retailers. He describes how NjiaPay's smart routing feature uses bank identification numbers to automatically route transactions to the best-performing PSP, helping to bridge the success rate gap between African and Western markets. Jonatan also outlines his lean expansion strategy, which focuses on staying out of the "regulatory microscope" by remaining a SaaS platform rather than entering the money flow directly.
The dialogue further addresses the benefits of NjiaPay's single integration, which replaces the need for multiple portals with a unified system for customer support, financial reporting, and technical maintenance. Looking toward the future, Jonatan announces the upcoming Q2 launch of an Account Updater product designed to tackle involuntary churn for subscription merchants in South Africa. Throughout the episode, he emphasizes the importance of strategic "triple win" partnerships and the philosophy of being a payment performance partner that truly listens to client needs to drive innovation.
Find more about NjiaPay here: NjiaPay.com
Follow Jonatan Allback here: https://nl.linkedin.com/in/jonatan-allback
In this episode of the Tech Can't Save Us podcast, host Paul David interviews Jonatan Roose, the co-founder of Healthy Workers. Based in Amsterdam, the company specializes in making every building smart through innovative building automation and energy management solutions. Since its founding, Healthy Workers has grown to manage over three million square meters across various asset classes, including offices, logistics, and retail spaces. Jonatan explains that the real estate industry has historically moved slowly, often relying on technology that is 30 years old. Healthy Workers bridges this gap by creating a positive business case for sustainability, often making it a "no brainer" for decision-makers who are primarily focused on financial returns.
Jonatan’s journey to leading Healthy Workers involved a major pivot. He joined the original company, Healthy Workers 1.0, which focused broadly on healthy work environments through initiatives like yoga and office plants. During the pandemic, when offices were empty, he and his co-founder Guus restructured the company to focus on the core issue revealed by their data: 85% of employee complaints were related to indoor climate. By shifting to building optimization, they were able to provide a service that addressed both tenant comfort and energy efficiency. Today, the company serves over 60 real estate investors, including Schroeder's Capital and Aviva Investors, by combining a sophisticated tech stack with a dedicated service-oriented approach.
Find out more about Jonatan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonatanroose/
Find out more about Healthy Workers: https://www.healthyworkers.com/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined for part two of a deep dive with Gary Bonilla, the co-founder of GoodMora. Following their previous discussion on why business transformations fail, they shift focus to the future of leadership, decision-making, and how behavior changes with better data and insights.
The conversation explores how strategy is shifting from trying to lock in a perfect answer based on past behavior to becoming adaptable without losing coherence. Gary explains that while the British are known for rigorous strategy, those models were often based on year-old data, whereas modern strategy requires real-time forecasting and prediction.
Gary argues that now is the right time for play because the speed of the market makes standard transformations obsolete before they even finish. AI enables this by providing binary clarity on numbers and facts, which opens up the space for leaders to engage in creative solutionizing.
A major theme of the episode is the end of delegation-heavy leadership. Gary suggests that CEOs can no longer delegate the innovation part of their business and must personally embrace an understanding of technology. Technology is no longer just a back-end function; it is a strategic conversation that requires leaders to understand concepts like knowledge graphs to navigate the modern business landscape.
The pair also discusses the human side of AI, noting that fear is beginning to subside as adoption steps up and platforms focus on human and AI collaboration. Gary emphasizes that leaders should use these tools for augmentation rather than replacement, allowing employees to focus on creative work rather than minutiae.
Find more about GoodMora here:https://www.goodmora.ai/
Follow Gary Bonilla here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garybonilla1/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Steven Puri, founder and CEO of The Sukha Company. Steven has led a fascinating career, transitioning from a high-level studio executive and producer at major Hollywood studios like DreamWorks and Sony to raising $21 million in venture funding across three tech startups. Together, they explore how remote work has broken traditional productivity models and why "presenteeism" and surveillance software are failing strategies for modern leadership.
They discuss the foundational challenges of the digital age, where the business models of the highest market cap companies are designed to "steal your life" through behavioral engineering. Steven explains how The Sukha Company acts as an ally in this tug-of-war, helping knowledge workers like designers, developers, and writers reclaim their focus through a "work fitness" approach.
The conversation delves deep into the science of flow states, inspired by the seminal work of psychologist Mihai Csikszentmihalyi. Steven shares how Sukha facilitates these states by integrating distraction blocking through a smart assistant that gently checks in when users stray to non-productive websites or pick up their phones. The platform also features curated flow music and naturescapes, such as "Himalayan Dream Rain," designed to help users enter deep work. Furthermore, the app optimizes task management by hiding overwhelming lists and focusing users on their top three goals to reduce cognitive load and paralysis.
Steven also offers a vision for the future of white-collar work, predicting that AI will change the workforce by automating routine "paper pushing" jobs and making high-level strategy more essential than ever. He suggests that the most successful leaders will be those who define work by outcomes and the quality of output rather than by time or place.
Find more about The Sukha Company here: https://thesukha.co
Follow Steven Puri here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-puri/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of Olio, a free app on a mission to tackle waste in homes and local communities. Since its launch in 2015, Olio has grown to over 8 million users who have collectively shared more than 130 million meals and prevented 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Tessa discusses how waste has become endemic across society because environmental and social impacts are not factored into business models, making it often more profitable to waste than to prevent.
The conversation explores how Olio catalyzes behavioral change by tapping into the primitive human instinct to share precious resources rather than throwing them away. Tessa explains that while most people assume demand is the biggest hurdle, the real challenge is encouraging people to take a few seconds to share an item rather than binning it. To address large-scale surplus, Olio utilizes 100,000 food safety trained volunteers through their "Food Waste Heroes" program to collect unsold food from major retailers like Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Iceland for redistribution to neighbors.
Paul and Tessa also dive into Olio's growth strategy, which relies heavily on organic word-of-mouth and a network of 50,000 ambassadors who perform hyperlocal marketing. Looking ahead, the company is shifting its focus toward driving demand within the student community and pursuing "surgical" international expansion by partnering with flagship retailers in markets like Singapore. Tessa reflects on her leadership journey from the corporate world to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of showing up authentically and balancing IQ with high EQ to build a truly impactful mission-driven culture.
Find more about Olio here:https://olioapp.com/business/
Follow Tessa Clarke here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessaclarkeolio/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Leo Crowe, the co-founder and CEO of Souk, a newly launched AI platform transforming how companies build and scale channel partnerships. Selected for Antler’s 2025 London cohort from over 150,000 applicants, Leo brings a wealth of experience from leadership roles at Deel and Papaya Global to solve the age-old inefficiencies of partnership management.
They discuss the rising importance of partner-led growth, noting that giants like Salesforce and HubSpot now derive over 50% of their revenue from partnerships. Leo explains why these relationships often fail, citing that historically, 9 out of 10 partners never refer a single lead due to friction in finding, activating, and paying them.
Find more about Souk here: joinSouk.com
Follow Leo Crowe here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-crowe-457815121/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Robert "Robby" Cobbs, CEO and founder, and Kyle Sumrow, director of development at TechMySchool. As the Caribbean’s leading EdTech consulting nonprofit, TechMySchool serves over 40 schools across Puerto Rico, the U.S., and internationally, helping them modernize systems and create student-centered learning environments.
They discuss the fundamental disconnect in modern education, where schools often have more technology than ever but feel overwhelmed and underprepared to use it effectively. Robert and Kyle explain how educator hesitation and a "retreat from technology" driven by parental concerns about screen time are shaping the current landscape.
Key conversation points include:
- Individualized Tech Plans (ITPs): How TechMySchool uses a non-judgmental, data-driven approach to diagnose school needs across educational systems, adult learning capacity, and student empowerment.
- The "Flock Leader" Program: A sustainable model that pays stipends to teachers to step into leadership roles, ensuring schools build long-term internal savvy rather than relying on one-off workshops.
- The Puerto Rico Context: The unique challenges facing students in Puerto Rico, who often lack access to basic infrastructure like public libraries and enter the continental U.S. workforce several grade levels behind their peers.
- Leading Through Curiosity: Why the most successful school transformations happen when leadership prioritizes a growth mindset and models a love of learning for their students.
Robert and Kyle also share insights from their international careers—spanning from Saudi Arabia to Switzerland—and explain why their "terrible business model" of trying to work themselves out of a job is the most ethical way to support schools.
Find more about TechMySchool here: https://techmyschool.org
Robert Cobbs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcobbs/
Kyle Sumrow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-sumrow-869516183/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Asmaa Bencherif, founder of Lori. Lori is an AI operating system designed to make real-world patient stories and outcomes usable at scale, helping individuals find health products that genuinely work in a crowded and often untrustworthy market.
Asmaa shares her personal journey of being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition and the difficulty of navigating vague online reviews and unverified forums while trying to manage her health outside the doctor's office. They discuss how Lori addresses these challenges by asking the right questions at the right time to generate structured, contextualized feedback from verified buyers.
The conversation covers:
- The Power of Storytelling: How Lori turns personal health narratives into searchable data assets and short-form content for brands.
- Trust as Currency: Partnering with science-backed companies in sectors like Neurotech, SleepTech, and FemTech to ensure a high standard of proof.
- Ethical AI & Compliance: Navigating strict regulations to ensure patient testimonials are safe and do not make unsubstantiated medical claims.
- Intentional Growth: Asmaa’s philosophy on "growing slow" to maintain data integrity and protect the customer relationship during her current £600,000 pre-seed fundraising round.
Asmaa also highlights the shift toward direct-to-consumer medical devices and why a trusted filter is necessary to reduce the "trial and error" often experienced by those living with chronic conditions.
Find out more about Lori here: https://lori.health
Follow Asmaa Bencherif here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asmaa-bencherif
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Galen Wolfe-Pauly, co-founder of Tlon. Tlon is a company radically reimagining the internet's foundation to create a simpler, more personal computing experience.
They discuss the structural flaws of the modern internet, where users rely on centralized identifiers and servers they do not own, leading to issues with privacy, data mining, and a lack of digital permanence. Galen explains how Tlon addresses these failures through a peer-to-peer network of nodes, where every individual owns their own cryptographic identity and "virtual machine".
The conversation covers:
- Digital Sovereignty: Why owning your entire computing stack is essential for building products that truly serve people.
- Architecture & Longevity: How Galen’s background in architecture influences his vision for digital tools that can last for decades or even centuries.
- The Tlon Messenger: A look at their current product—a highly customizable, extensible "super app" that allows communities to run their own servers.
- Craftsmanship in Software: Why the next "battle" on the internet is shifting from mediocre, ad-driven platforms to high-quality, carefully crafted digital environments.
Galen also shares the immense technical challenges of building a new programming language and operating environment from scratch and why Tlon’s mission to create software that outlives its creators provides a deeper sense of purpose.
Find more about Tlon here:https://tlon.io/
Follow Galen Wolfe-Pauly here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/galenwolfepauly/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Richard Savoie, Founding CEO of Adiona, an award-winning AI-powered delivery optimization platform that is reinventing how cities move goods. As urban populations grow and delivery volumes explode, the "last mile" has become the most expensive, complex, and emissions-intensive part of the supply chain.
They discuss the "cracks" in modern logistics, where the loss of batching efficiency makes individual home deliveries incredibly costly for retailers. Rich explains how Adiona’s AI engine helps fleets deliver up to 87% faster and 50% cheaper by automating complex dispatch decisions that were traditionally handled manually with paper maps and spreadsheets.
The conversation covers:
- The Sustainability Challenge: Why transport is predicted to be the highest single emitting industry by 2030 and the specific difficulties of electrifying commercial fleets at scale.
- Digital Twins and Simulations: How Adiona uses historical data to help retailers predict driver needs for peak seasons like Black Friday.
- The "Knowledge" of AI: Moving beyond human limitations to dynamically prioritize deliveries based on revenue and profit margin during disruptions like snowstorms.
- Growth and Financing: Rich’s journey from failing to raise VC funds for a commuting app to finding success with a mission-driven, debt-financed model for logistics.
Rich also shares insights on the psychological barriers to automation in large enterprises and why he believes the convergence of AI, robotics, and quantum computing offers a path toward a better world for the most vulnerable.
Find more about Adiona here:https://www.adionatech.com/
Follow Rich Savoie here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/richsavoie/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Connor Mason and Glenn Stephenson, co-founders of Fluid Focus, a Belfast-based company rethinking our relationship with technology. With research showing the average adult spends nearly a third of their waking hours—and Gen Z over six hours a day—on their smartphones, Fluid Focus aims to flip the dynamic from tech consuming our lives to tech enhancing them.
They discuss the alarming "attention economy" where products are designed to monetize human focus, leading to fractured productivity, increased anxiety, and a "loneliness epidemic" as physical socialization declines. Connor and Glenn share how their background in big tech and corporate consulting revealed a shared struggle: the inability to focus for more than a few minutes without compulsively reaching for a phone.
The conversation covers the Fluid Focus app’s innovative approach, which combines:
- Deep Work Tools: One-click focus sessions that block distracting apps and utilize curated "focus music" from global leader Mindstream to keep users on task.
- Gamification and Incentives: A system where users earn "Fluid Coins" for focus sessions, which can be used to enter wellness raffles or provide days of education for children through the charity Mary’s Meals.
- Data-Driven Habits: Passive blocking rules (like "no social media until 10,000 steps") and tracking tools for mood and productivity.
Glenn and Connor discuss their strategic move to partner with academic institutions and workplaces rather than competing in the crowded consumer market, aiming to create a "focus operating system" for the modern world.
Find more about Fluid Focus here: https://www.fluidfocus.app/
Connor Mason:https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-mason-2b347b128/
Glenn Stephenson:https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-stephenson-1297849a/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Jinesh Vohra, founder and CEO of Sprive, a UK-based fintech on a mission to help homeowners pay off their mortgages years earlier and save thousands in interest.
The conversation dives deep into the structural flaws of the UK mortgage system, where high property prices relative to salaries have forced many into 30 or 40-year mortgage terms. Jinesh highlights the sobering reality that millions of people are now on track to carry mortgage debt well past the age of retirement. He shares his personal journey of frustration with traditional banking—ranging from the manual slog of tracking overpayments on Excel spreadsheets to the "nightmare" nine-month process of actually moving into a home in the UK. This personal friction, combined with a 14-year career at Goldman Sachs, inspired him to build a consumer-centric solution that empowers homeowners to take back control.
Jinesh explains how Sprive differentiates itself by making mortgage reduction a seamless part of daily life through its "Shop Away Your Mortgage" feature. By partnering with major brands like Amazon, Tesco, and Sainsbury’s, the app allows users to earn rewards on everyday purchases that are instantly pushed toward their mortgage balance. These small, frequent contributions benefit from compound interest, often saving the homeowner triple the original reward amount over the life of the loan. The platform further optimizes financial health by using open banking to analyze spending patterns, automatically setting aside spare cash for overpayments only when the user can afford it.
The episode also explores the challenges of disrupting an industry dominated by an oligopoly of lenders who lack the motivation to innovate or simplify the customer experience. Jinesh discusses the rigor required to build a trusted fintech brand, including raising £4.5 million in funding and passing strict regulatory checks to ensure zero fraud. He concludes by painting a picture of the life-changing freedom that comes with being mortgage-free, which can unlock new hobbies, career shifts, and the ability to build generational wealth.
Find more about Sprive here: https://sprive.com/
Follow Jinesh Vohra here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jinesh-vohra/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Greg Freeman, founder and CEO of Data Literacy Academy, an organization dedicated to building data-confident cultures within the world’s top companies.
They discuss the staggering reality that up to 83% of the workforce is data illiterate, leaving businesses unable to effectively monetize or act upon the billions of dollars they invest in AI platforms and data infrastructure. Greg explains why technology alone cannot solve business problems if the people using it lack the confidence and mindset to make data-led decisions.
The conversation covers the critical role of leadership in driving change, the concept of "taught fear" in education, and how Data Literacy Academy uses live learning to transform anxious employees into confident data thinkers. Greg also shares insights on moving industry measurements from inputs and outputs to meaningful outcomes, treating data literacy as a multi-year cultural change rather than a one-off training session and the "champagne problem" of a data-literate workforce surfacing more business use cases than a data office can handle.
Find more about Data Literacy Academy here: www.dl-academy.com
Follow Greg Freeman here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregdata/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Matthew Whyatt, founder and chief strategist at TechTorque, a consultancy that helps B2B software and SaaS companies sharpen their go-to-market strategies, scale revenue, and build predictable sales systems.
They discuss how AI is fundamentally reshaping B2B software sales while emphasizing that great selling isn't dying, it's evolving. With over 25 years in software sales and more than $100 million in tech sales across startups and global markets, Matthew shares why AI won't replace salespeople but will eliminate lazy approaches and amplify the performance of skilled reps.
The conversation covers the critical importance of bio-led qualification over demos, why hyper-personalization is now essential even for lower-priced products, and how sales teams need to invest in empathy and structured frameworks rather than just adding more AI tools. Matthew also reveals his approach to selling diagnosis before solutions, the power of scripting in sales, and why the best salespeople will become even more valuable in the AI era.
Find more about TechTorque here: https://techtorque.co
Follow Matthew Whyatt here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewwhyatt
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Mijke van Ballegooijen, CEO of BYBORRE, a pioneering textile innovation company based in Amsterdam that's redefining how fabrics are designed, produced, and valued through data-driven design and radical transparency.
They discuss the fundamental problems plaguing the global textile industry, which accounts for up to 10% of global carbon emissions, including fragmented supply chains, overproduction, and greenwashing. Mijke explains how BYBORRE is tackling these challenges through true on-demand production, focusing on longevity over recyclability, and providing designers with digital tools that reveal the environmental impact of their design choices in real-time.
The conversation covers BYBORRE's strategic pivot from fashion to the interior design market, their innovative software platform that translates any design into knit files for mattress-ticking machines worldwide, and their recent recognition as both an innovation and sustainability startup and the "coolest Dutch brand." Mijke also shares insights on leading through aligned autonomy, building mission-driven companies at scale, and why radical transparency, including their seven-year-old textile passport system, is essential for driving real change in the industry.
Find more about BYBORRE here: https://byborre.com
Follow Mijke van Ballegooijen here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mijkevanballegooijen
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Kirsten Karchmer, CEO of Conceivable, a pioneering digital health company that is revolutionizing precision medicine for fertility and women's wellness. Kirsten's career spans more than two decades transforming how women approach their reproductive health. After running one of North America's largest fertility wellness clinics as the first board-certified reproductive acupuncturist in North America, she founded Conceivable to bring clinical expertise to scale through data science, personalized nutraceuticals, and lifestyle interventions.
Kirsten explains why the current fertility care system is fundamentally broken—pushing women toward expensive IVF and IUI treatments without addressing the underlying health issues that impact their ability to conceive and stay pregnant. She argues that 75-80% of fertility challenges stem from lifestyle factors like sleep, nutrition, stress, and behavioral health, which can be addressed for a fraction of the cost of traditional treatments. Rather than using fertility interventions to override the body's warning signals, Conceivable helps women understand and resolve root causes, improving not just fertility outcomes but long-term health.
The conversation explores Conceivable's innovative approach: an AI-powered "operating system for women's health" featuring a virtual care team that includes therapists, nutritionists, chefs, and formulators who provide daily, personalized support. Using predictive analytics, wearable data, and individualized supplement formulations, the platform addresses each woman's unique health profile rather than offering generic fertility advice. Kirsten shares insights from building the company, including a previous failed attempt in 2016, her breakthrough growth on TikTok after advice from investor Gary Vaynerchuk, and why authentic customer connection through daily live Q&A sessions shaped the product's development.
Paul and Kirsten dig into women's health innovation, the dangers of tracking apps that provide data without actionable guidance, the importance of building products people genuinely love, and why behavioral health interventions are more effective than supplements alone. They also discuss Kirsten's book Seeing Red, which tackles how menstrual health became stigmatized, and her vision for an operating system that supports women across their entire reproductive lifecycle.
Find more about Conceivable here: https://www.conceivable.com/
Follow Kirsten Karchmer here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsten-karchmer-0139808/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Gary Bonilla, Co-Founder of GoodMora, a company pioneering structural intelligence. AI-driven tools that make the hidden architecture of a business visible, measurable, and adaptable. Gary’s career spans newsroom reporting, global brand strategy, and creative leadership at Nickelodeon, where he helped revive icons like SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer, and later at Interpublic Group, where he led strategy across multinational portfolios including Nestlé and Unilever.
Gary explains why most organisations still treat AI as an add-on (automating content or workflows) while ignoring the structural systems that shape decisions, incentives, creativity, and trust. At GoodMora, he and his team use AI, ontology, and graph technology to map how a business truly functions: where alignment breaks down, where workstreams become “orphaned,” and where strategy fails long before execution. This structural visibility enables leaders to simulate transformations before they spend, turning strategy from guesswork into science.
The conversation explores how adaptability has become the defining competitive advantage, why creativity and data must work together (not in opposition), and how brands can evolve from static assets to living systems that sense and respond to real-time signals. Gary also shares insights from GoodMora’s early pilots, including how mapping organisational trust and decision flows uncovered strategic blind spots for a major healthcare group pursuing AI at scale.
Paul and Gary dig into leadership, transformation failure rates, the future of brand building, and the role AI will play in collapsing the traditional gap between strategy and execution, enabling leaders to “play” again, rather than manage from the sidelines.
Find more about GoodMora here: https://www.goodmora.ai/
Read Gary’s white paper on Structural Intelligence: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-driven-talent-augmentation-empowering-future-edgardo-bonilla-guuie/
Follow Gary Bonilla here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garybonilla1/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Erin Lee, CEO of Flow Neuroscience, the Swedish health-tech company behind a breakthrough in depression treatment: a wearable brain-stimulation headset that offers a safe, evidence-based alternative to traditional antidepressants.
Flow’s device uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to gently activate brain regions responsible for mood regulation. In a landmark 2023 double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, Flow outperformed 21 frontline antidepressants, earning a feature in Nature’s “Future of Medicine” edition, an unprecedented milestone for at-home neuroscience technology. Today, Flow has 50,000+ users, is available across 200 clinics and multiple NHS trusts, and has raised nearly $20M to bring new forms of treatment to those who need it most.
Erin shares how the Flow experience works day-to-day, why users often see improvements within the first two weeks, and how pairing brain stimulation with an app-driven behavioral toolkit increases neuroplasticity and supports long-term recovery. She also speaks candidly about public perception, clinician adoption, and why Flow chose the harder, highly regulated path to build trust and clinical credibility from day one.
The conversation expands into Flow’s growth strategy, upcoming global expansion, and Erin’s transition from leadership roles at Google, Uber, and Babylon Health into one of the most personal and emotionally charged spaces in healthcare. She reflects on the influence of her own family’s mental health history, the importance of scientific rigor, and what it means to build a startup where the mission is literally life-changing.
Find more about Flow Neuroscience here: https://www.flowneuroscience.com
Follow Erin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinslee/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Andy Ellwood, founder and CEO of Stretch, the first shopping intelligence platform built to help families save money and make smarter grocery decisions. Andy’s career spans private aviation, startups acquired by Facebook and Google, business development at Waze, and years spent coaching top founders and now he’s bringing that eclectic experience to one of the most universal, everyday challenges: buying groceries.
Andy explains why the grocery industry is overdue for reinvention. Despite rising prices and endless choices, shoppers still lack the information parity they now expect in categories like travel, real estate, and healthcare. Stretch solves this by turning individual shopping lists into collective intelligence: shoppers enter their weekly items, and the app instantly shows which nearby retailers offer the best total basket price, often saving families $20–$40 per week.
The conversation explores Stretch’s early traction, from thousands joining the waitlist to viral TikTok growth, and how the team is building a massive data moat by connecting cross-retailer pricing in ways the industry never had to before. Andy shares how AI and “agentic commerce” will transform shopping, why Stretch centers dignity and agency for families navigating rising costs, and how his background at Waze shaped his approach to scaling community-driven products.
Find more about Stretch here: https://stretchformore.com
Download Stretch on iOS or Android by clicking here.
Follow Andy Ellwood here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyellwood/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Dr. Serge Santos, entrepreneur, investor, and award-winning leader known as The Business Physicist. After deploying over $1 billion in capital during his investment banking and hedge fund career and achieving a multi-million-dollar exit with his previous company, Serge is now tackling one of the UK’s most persistent economic challenges: SME access to finance.
Through Funding Alternative Group, Serge and his team are reimagining how small businesses secure funding when traditional banks say no. Since 2022, the platform has deployed £8M in SME loans and £18M in invoice finance, offering fast, flexible, and human-centred lending for businesses often shut out of conventional systems. Serge explains how open banking allows Funding Alternative to assess risk using real-time data rather than outdated statements, enabling decisions in hours instead of weeks when clients face challenges.
The conversation explores the company’s biggest growth opportunities, the complexities of raising institutional capital responsibly, and how Serge applies his “business physicist” mindset to simplify complexity through rational, systems-based thinking. He also shares why culture is his “ultimate multiplier of success,” and why discipline, transparency, and trust sit at the heart of every funding decision.
Find more about Funding Alternative here: https://fundingalternative.co.uk
Follow Dr. Serge Santos here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/santosserge/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Professor Rob Young, Co-Founder & Chief Science Officer of Quantum Base, a pioneering deep-tech company using quantum physics to authenticate products and stop counterfeiting at the atomic level.
Rob explains how Quantum Base’s flagship technology, Q-ID, a tiny, printed tag containing “atomic-level uniqueness,” delivers provably secure authentication that’s impossible to clone and can be verified by anyone using a standard smartphone. With over half a billion Q-ID tags already produced, the company is tackling a global counterfeiting problem worth $2.8 trillion, including counterfeit medicines that cause more than 1 million deaths annually.
The conversation explores Quantum Base’s journey from university research to becoming a publicly listed company on London’s AIM market, raising £4.8M to scale its technology across industries, from luxury goods and government documents to pharmaceuticals and critical supply chains. Rob also reflects on his 20-year academic career across Cambridge, Tyndall, and Lancaster, how a breakthrough in his PhD work inspired the origins of Q-ID, and why he believes quantum security must be accessible, affordable, and deployable at global scale.
Find more about Quantum Base here: https://quantumbase.com
Follow Rob Young here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/qopto/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David sits down with John Richardson, Co-Founder and Director of Coaching at MySalesCoach, the fast-growing platform tackling a problem almost every sales leader knows too well: sales reps simply aren’t getting enough meaningful coaching.
John explains why traditional sales management often fails to deliver authentic coaching, outlining the fundamental disconnect between holding reps accountable and creating a safe space for them to grow. MySalesCoach solves this by pairing salespeople with independent, specialist coaches, creating a personal-trainer-for-sales model that has already delivered 5,000+ coaching sessions to more than 100 sales teams.
The conversation digs into how MySalesCoach matches reps to the right expert, how they measure coaching impact through baselines and ongoing evaluation, and why sales qualification remains one of the biggest skill gaps in the industry. John also shares insights into the company’s rapid growth, including £1.1M in recent funding, over £1M in ARR, and new AI-driven tools built to provide real-time sales support without replacing the human coaching experience.
Find more about MySalesCoach here: https://mysalescoach.com
Follow John Richardson here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrichardson11/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Rupert Shaw, founder and CEO of BILRS, a global bill payment platform that allows companies to offer everything from electricity and gas to mobile top-ups and TV subscriptions, all through a single API integration.
Rupert shares how BILRS is tackling one of fintech’s biggest challenges: the “last mile” of cross-border payments. While many remittance companies have digitized the transfer process, billions of users still struggle to convert those funds into everyday bill payments. BILRS bridges that gap, giving economic migrants and their families direct control over how their money is spent, while helping businesses standardize complex payment systems across thousands of local billers.
The conversation explores BILRS’s rapid global expansion into 20+ markets, its partnerships with major players like Al Ansari Exchange in the UAE, and how the company is leveraging embedded finance to deliver transparency, insight, and financial inclusion to underserved populations. Rupert also reflects on lessons from his 20-year career in mobile, gaming, and fintech (from EA to Ding) and how those experiences shaped his vision for a more connected and human-centered payments ecosystem.
Find more about BILRS here: https://bilrs.com
Follow Rupert Shaw here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupertshaw
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Jason Saltzman, co-founder and CEO of Relief, the first AI-powered consumer debt resolution platform designed to help people tackle the overwhelming credit-card debt crisis.
Jason shares how Relief automates the complex process of negotiating with creditors, helping users save up to 70% on what they owe, while restoring trust, transparency, and dignity to an industry long plagued by hidden fees and predatory models. Using AI, Relief analyzes users’ financial data, identifies optimal settlement strategies, and executes negotiations automatically, allowing anyone to access professional-grade debt relief right from their phone.
The conversation explores Relief’s journey from a $15M Series A to a strategic partnership with National Debt Relief, the largest settlement company in the U.S., enabling the startup to expand nationwide. Jason also discusses his personal mission to democratize access to financial help, his early experiences with debt that shaped Relief’s ethos, and his broader vision for tech that delivers tangible, human-first impact.
Find more about Relief here: https://www.relief.app/
Follow Jason Saltzman here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonsaltzman
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Dr. Benyamin Deldar and David Hanbury, the co-founders of Deep Medical, a healthcare startup using AI to tackle one of medicine’s most expensive and overlooked problems: patient no-shows.
Deep Medical’s platform analyzes over a decade of appointment and social data to predict which patients are most likely to miss visits and why. Their explainable AI helps hospitals take early action, from sending targeted reminders to offering transport through partnerships like Uber Health, unlocking millions of new appointments and reducing health inequalities in the process.
Ben and Dave share how a doctor and a data scientist came together (literally matched by an algorithm!) to build tech that makes healthcare more efficient, fair, and humane. They discuss the global scale of the problem, what it takes to earn clinicians’ trust in AI, and how their mission could help eliminate hospital waitlists altogether.
Find more about Deep Medical here: https://deep-medical.ai
Follow Dr. Benyamin Deldar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benyamin-deldar-951ab3153/
Follow David Hanbury:https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hanbury-686a3ab/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by David Glennie, founder and CEO of Voodoo Park, a purpose-driven technology company creating transformational solutions for the financial services industry. Under David’s leadership, Voodoo Park has become a certified B Corp, donates 10% of its profits to support women and girls worldwide, and has even founded the world’s first international trade union for software engineers.
They discuss how the company’s latest innovation, Aime (a transparent, secure, and scalable AI platform), is helping enterprises use artificial intelligence ethically and effectively. The conversation also explores Voodoo Park’s mission to make enterprise AI more accessible, David’s journey from actor and musician to tech founder, and how businesses can balance innovation with social impact.
Find more about Voodoo Park here: https://voodoopark.com
Follow David Glennie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidglennie/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Michael Wang, founder and Chief Clinical Officer of Inspiren, a health tech company revolutionizing senior care through augmented intelligence.
Michael shares how Inspiren has built the first complete AI-driven senior living ecosystem, integrating care planning, resident safety, emergency response, and workforce optimization into a single platform. At the center of this ecosystem is AUGi, a wall-mounted pod that uses geometric exoskeletal monitoring to track resident movement without compromising privacy. It dramatically reduces falls, improves care accuracy, and helps staff work more efficiently.
The conversation explores how Inspiren has achieved measurable results, including up to an 83% reduction in 911 calls and increased accuracy in care-level assignments that improve both outcomes and operator financials. Michael also reflects on his unique career journey, from serving as a U.S. Army Green Beret to working as a clinician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and how those experiences shaped his mission-driven approach to innovation.
Find more about Inspiren here: https://www.inspiren.com/
Follow Michael Wang here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-wang-inspiren/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by John Fontein, co-founder of Sesame, a healthcare marketplace making quality medical care affordable and accessible for everyone.
They explore how Sesame’s direct-pay model enables patients to book medical services, ranging from primary care visits to specialist procedures, at transparent, upfront cash prices that are often 60% lower than traditional healthcare costs. John shares how the platform has already helped over a million patients save more than $50 million, and how competition on Sesame has driven prices down nationwide.
The conversation dives into Sesame’s innovative partnerships, including an exclusive Costco deal offering $29 virtual visits, as well as the company’s expansion into employer programs through Sesame @ Work. John also reflects on his unconventional journey from music production and finance to health tech founder, and the personal experiences that motivated him to tackle healthcare accessibility.
Find more about Sesame here: https://sesamecare.com/
Follow John Fontein here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfontein/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Dr. Joel Braunstein, co-founder, CEO, and president of C2N Diagnostics, a pioneering biotech company transforming the way we diagnose Alzheimer’s disease.
They explore how C2N is advancing blood-based diagnostic tools, most notably the Precivity AD test that delivers accuracy comparable to PET scans and spinal taps, but in a simpler, less invasive format. Joel shares how these innovations are reducing misdiagnosis rates, empowering clinicians, and providing families with clarity during some of their most difficult moments.
Joel reflects on his journey from cardiologist at Johns Hopkins to biotech founder, the curiosity and persistence that drive his work, and the importance of balancing rapid innovation with clinical rigor. He also shares personal insights, quickfire takes on tech innovation, and the philosophies that keep him grounded.
Find more about C2N Diagnostics here: https://www.c2n.com
Follow Dr.Braustein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-braunstein-md-9456611/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Sar Ruddenklau, Founder of Cursive Media, a strategic communications agency that works specifically with underrepresented B2B founders and C-suite executives to transform them into influential thought leaders.
They discuss how the executive branding landscape has shifted, and why showing up as an authentic human voice has become more crucial. Saar explains the specific challenges facing underrepresented founders, including the confidence gap that holds back talented executives who don't realise the value of their expertise.
The conversation covers Saar's journalistic approach to content creation, her strategy of deliberately keeping Cursive small to maintain hands-on relationships with clients, and how she helps founders build credibility.
Saar shares insights from her work across healthtech and fintech, her background moving from Australia to the US, and much more!
Find more about Cursive Media here:https://www.cursive.media/
Follow Sar here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarruddenklau/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Shawna Young, CEO of Camelback Ventures, a New Orleans-based organization that invests in entrepreneurs of color and women building social impact ventures.
They discuss how Camelback is tackling one of entrepreneurship's biggest challenges: while genius is equally distributed, opportunity definitely isn't. Since 2015, the organization has invested over $9 million in more than 200 entrepreneurs, primarily from under-resourced communities, providing not just capital but executive coaching and access to mission-driven networks through their Fellowship program.
With applications now open for their 2026 Fellowship, Shawna explains how they're evolving their 16-week hybrid program to meet entrepreneurs where they are in today's challenging funding environment.
The conversation also covers the concrete barriers that underinvested entrepreneurs face, from starting ventures on credit card debt to competing against better-funded competitors, and how Camelback's approach differs from traditional accelerators.
Learn more about Camelback Ventures and the 2026 Fellowship application process here: https://www.camelbackventures.org/
Follow Shawna Young here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/youngshawna/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Tom Rudnai, Founder and CEO of Demand-Genius.
Tom discusses why 75% of buyers are now avoiding sales reps and how most top-of-funnel content has started reading like a sales pitch. They explore the biggest misconceptions content teams make when trying to prove their value, and how the shift toward AI overviews in search has pushed companies to focus on bottom-of-funnel terms.
The conversation covers how Demand-Genius tracks exactly how sales teams use content and its influence on pipeline and revenue.
Find more about Demand-Genius here: https://www.demand-genius.com/
Follow Tom Rudnai here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-rudnai-0539b6151/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Justine Palefsky, co-founder and CEO of Kindred, a members-only home exchange community that's transforming how we think about travel and accommodation.
They discuss how Kindred has grown to include over 130,000 homes across more than 100 cities since launching in 2021, and why home swapping is experiencing a renaissance in our post-pandemic world.
The conversation covers the evolution of home exchange programs, how Kindred builds trust between strangers swapping homes, and the role technology plays in scaling their vetting process.
Find more about Kindred here: https://livekindred.com/
Follow Justine Palefsky here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justine-palefsky
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Heidi Kujawa, Founder and CEO of ByFusion, a manufacturing company that's turning plastic waste into high-performing building materials called ByBlocks.
They discuss the staggering scale of the plastic waste crisis, with less than 9% of plastic getting recycled annually, and how traditional recycling methods have failed to address this growing problem. Heidi walks through the process of converting mixed plastic waste into durable building blocks and covers how ByBlocks compares to traditional materials like concrete in terms of performance and environmental impact.
Find more about ByFusion here: https://www.byfusion.com/
Follow Heidi Kujawa here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidikujawa/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Chloe Coleman, Co-Founder & CEO of Vouchsafe, an inclusive identity verification platform tackling the global challenge of ID poverty through innovative approaches like biometric vouching.
They discuss the staggering reality that 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to proper identification, including 11 million people in the UK who don't have a passport or driving licence. Chloe explains how this creates barriers to essential services like banking, healthcare, and housing, and why the increasing digitisation of services has made the problem even more acute.
Find more about Vouchsafe here: https://www.vouchsafe.id/
Follow Chloe Coleman here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-coleman/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Amanda Bickerstaff, Founder and CEO of AI for Education.
They discuss how Amanda is helping bridge the growing divide between schools that are embracing AI and those that are restricting it entirely.
Amanda, a former high school biology teacher, shares her journey from the classroom to founding a company that has partnered with more than 150 academic institutions since April 2023. The conversation explores common misconceptions about AI in education and Amanda's hands-on approach to AI literacy training.
They also cover Amanda's ambitious goal of supporting 1 million educators and the challenges of scaling from a first workshop to training thousands weekly.
Find more about AI for Education here: https://www.aiforeducation.io/
Follow Amanda Bickerstaff here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-bickerstaff-edu/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Matej Svancer, Founder & CEO of Openvibe, a platform that's bringing together the fragmented world of decentralised social media into one unified experience.
They discuss how Openvibe connects platforms like Mastodon, BlueSky, Threads, and Nostr, allowing users to manage all their social networks from a single app. Matej explains why decentralisation is becoming crucial as people wake up to the risks of centralised platforms, from algorithm manipulation to content suppression.
The conversation covers Openvibe's impressive growth to 80,000 downloads, the challenges of making complex decentralised tech accessible to everyday users, and how the company is using its recent $800,000 funding round to expand.
Find more about Openvibe here: https://openvibe.social/
Follow Matej here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/matej-svancer-399b2012b/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Michael Howard, founder and CEO of Nichefire, an AI-powered cultural intelligence platform that helps major brands like Walmart, Kraft Heinz, and Nestle identify and predict emerging cultural trends before they hit the mainstream.
They discuss how cultural intelligence has evolved far beyond traditional social listening, allowing businesses to spot micro-trends that start in small online communities and behavioural shifts that companies have historically missed.
The conversation covers Nichefire's recent $2.6 million funding round, how the AI technology actually works to process data from multiple online sources, and Michael's journey from traditional marketing roles to founding a company that predicts cultural movements.
Find more about Nichefire here: https://nichefire.com/
Follow Michael Howard here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahmike7/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Dawson Chen, co-founder and CEO of Martin AI, a Y Combinator-backed startup building what they claim is a more intuitive and personalised AI assistant that rivals offerings from tech giants like OpenAI and Google.
At just 19 years old, Dawson left Yale University to pursue his vision of creating an AI assistant that feels like having your own personal Jarvis. They discuss how Martin is filling gaps that current AI assistants haven't addressed, the advantages of being a scrappy startup competing with tech giants, and the most surprising ways people are using Martin.
Dawson also reflects on their recent $2 million seed funding round and why he believes the future will be about which company has the most viral AI product.
Find more about Martin AI here: https://www.trymartin.com/
Follow Dawson here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawson-chen-9b62a8183/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Dr. Jing Ouyang, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of Patchwork Health, an award-winning healthtech company transforming workforce management in the NHS.
Jing shares how Patchwork Health was born from his own frustrations as a locum doctor, creating a platform that works like "an Uber for clinicians" allowing doctors to book shifts flexibly while helping hospitals reduce agency spending. They discuss how their solution has tripled internal bank fill rates at NHS trusts, saving millions in agency costs while giving clinicians better work-life balance.
The conversation also explores Jing's transition from practising medicine to entrepreneurship, the mindset shift required when moving from a risk-averse medical environment to the uncertainty of building a business, and how Patchwork has scaled to support over 100 NHS organisations through strategic acquisitions and a mission-driven approach.
Find more about Patchwork Health here: https://patchwork.health/
Follow Dr. Jing Ouyang here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jingouyang1/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Mike Rolih, Founder and CEO of GoRout, a sports technology company transforming coach-to-player communication through innovative wearable technology.
Mike shares how GoRout's technology is changing training efficiency for teams across professional leagues, Division 1 programs, and youth sports. They discuss the traditional challenges of coach-to-player communication in sports and how wearable tech is creating more streamlined, effective practices.
Mike reveals the enormous potential market opportunities across different sports and shares valuable lessons for aspiring sports tech entrepreneurs.
Find more about GoRout here: https://gorout.com/
Follow Mike Rolih here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrolih/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, Paul David chats with Kavitta Ghai, CEO and co-founder of Nectir, about transforming education with FERPA-compliant AI assistants. They explore how Nectir provides 24/7 personalised support for students while relieving overwhelmed teachers across 100+ partner institutions.
Kavitta shares her personal journey from struggling student to EdTech founder, including her content marketing philosophy and vision for AI in education. The conversation reveals how user feedback shapes Nectir's development and why personalised learning is finally becoming accessible to all students, not just those at elite institutions.
Find more about Nectir here: https://nectir.io/
Follow Kavitta Ghai here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavittaghai/
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Tove Nilstun, co-founder and CEO of Emission Twin, a climate tech startup based in Malmö, Sweden that helps companies tackle their carbon emissions through smart, user-friendly solutions.
Tove shares how Emission Twin's platform simplifies climate reporting for businesses while identifying practical opportunities to cut emissions. They discuss the company's approach to onboarding companies through existing data and helping them work toward science-based targets.
The conversation explores Tove's fascinating almost 30-year journey in tech to founding a startup addressing one of today's most critical challenges.
Find more about Emission Twin here: https://www.emissiontwin.com/
Follow Tove Nilstun here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tove-nilstun/
Photo by @Elisa Sanvito
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Ruby Raut, CEO and co-founder of WUKA, the brand leading the charge in sustainable period care with its innovative leak-proof underwear.
They discuss how WUKA is challenging the dominance of disposable pads and tampons, the role of sustainability in product design, and the growing movement toward eco-friendly period solutions. Ruby shares how WUKA is scaling through major retailers like Tesco, and what it means to be a FemTech leader advocating for inclusivity in women’s health.
Find more about WUKA here: https://wuka.co.uk
Follow Ruby Raut here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruby-raut-49987b58/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, Paul is joined by Michael Kissner, Founder & CEO of Akhetonics, the company developing the world’s first all-optical general-purpose processor.
They discuss how optical computing could transform AI, networking, avionics, and space applications by processing data with light instead of electricity. Michael explains why now is the right time for all-optical processors, how Akhetonics is challenging assumptions about hardware design, and why their fully optical approach stands out from hybrid solutions.
Michael also shares his unconventional journey from the German Armed Forces to leading one of Europe’s most exciting deep-tech startups. He talks about the lessons he’s taken from military operations and cybersecurity research, and how they’ve shaped Akhetonics’ approach to problem-solving, leadership, and scaling.
Find out more about Akhetonics here: https://www.akhetonics.com/
Follow Michael Kissner here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kissner-968855116/?locale=en_US
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Dr. Alec Snow and Dr. Rebecca Allam, co-founders of PreActiv, a digital prehabilitation platform helping patients get stronger before surgery.
They discuss how thousands of surgeries are delayed or come with avoidable complications simply because patients aren’t physically prepared. With PreActiv, Alec and Rebecca are making personalised prehab more accessible through tech, helping patients recover faster while reducing costs and strain on healthcare systems like the NHS.
The conversation covers how they built PreActiv from scratch during lockdown, the real-world impact of prehab on patient outcomes, and why investors are backing their mission. They also dive into how AI and data-driven insights could shape the future of surgical care.
Find out more about PreActiv here: https://www.preactiv.co.uk/
Follow Dr. Alec Snow here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alec-snow-b85358157/
Follow Dr. Rebecca Allam here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccapreactiv/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, Paul is joined by Mical Jeanlys-White, Founder and CEO at WealthMore, a fintech platform that’s making financial advice more accessible. They discuss why wealth management has historically been out of reach for most people, and how WealthMore is changing that by offering financial planning services and a supportive community to help users build generational wealth.
Mical shares what she’s learned from launching WealthMore in 2021, including talking about its new free community membership, its growing user base, and the role of community in financial empowerment.
Find more about WealthMore here: https://www.wealthmore.net/
Follow Mical Jeanlys-White here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mical-jeanlys-white-9126366/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, Paul welcomes Sanchit Thakur, the founder and CEO of Illuminz, a creative consultancy based in Mohali, India.
Sanchit is no stranger to the podcasting world, as he also hosts the Bright Talks podcast, where he chats with industry leaders about creative strategies and the latest tech trends.
In their conversation, Sanchit shares what makes Illuminz stand out in a crowded field of creative agencies. He dives into the inspiration behind founding the company in 2009 and discusses how the creative landscape in India has evolved over the years.
Find out more about Illuminz here: https://www.illuminz.com/
Follow Sanchit here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanchitthakur/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, Paul is joined by Dr. Chang Liu, CEO of Extend Robotics. Chang’s company uses VR technology to help people control robots remotely, making operations safer, more intuitive, and accessible. From manufacturing to agriculture, Extend Robotics is transforming automation in industries that need human oversight in hazardous environments.
Chang shares the story behind the company’s founding, how it’s grown since 2019, and the potential for VR-powered robotics to address global labor shortages and revolutionize industries.
Find out more about Extend Robotics here: https://www.extendrobotics.com
Follow Chang Liu here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thechangliu/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by James Townsend, co-founder and CEO of Mobilise, an online platform providing expert support and tailored advice to its community of 90,000 unpaid carers across the UK.
James shares his personal experience of caregiving, and why it inspired him to create an online community for other unpaid carers. The discussion also touches on the future ambitions of Mobilise, the demographics of its users, and the ongoing challenge of identifying caregivers who may not recognise themself as such.
James emphasises the need for scalable systems to support the growing number of careers, the importance of data in shaping policy, and the need to reframe the perception of carers as valuable assets in society.
Find more about Mobilise here: https://www.mobiliseonline.co.uk/
Follow James Townsend here: https://www.linkedin.com/in./jamestownsenduk
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Manjul Rathee, co-founder and CEO at BFB Labs. BFB Labs provides digital therapy for children through an app based video game called Lumi Nova which has been funded and commissioned by the NHS.
The conversation delves into the challenges of mental health support for young people, the importance of user engagement and game design, and the role of exposure therapy in building resilience.
Manjul emphasises the need for co-designing solutions with young people to ensure effectiveness and accessibility in mental health interventions.
Find more about BfB Labs here: https://www.bfb-labs.com/
Follow Manjul here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manjulrathee
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Kat James, Director of New Projects at Consultant Connect. They discuss how Consultant Connect helps reduce waiting times and improve patient outcomes by connecting community-based clinicians with specialists for immediate advice.
The conversation centres around how Consultant Connect has helped over 400,000 patients avoid hospital trips, including the little learning curb it has for hospital staff and GPs. The key to a successful healthtech roll out in the NHS, Kat advises, is identifying “champions” early on to build clinical trust in the technology.
Kat also debunks myths about the NHS, discusses the disproportionate effect that waiting lists have on women, and outlines the promise that international telemedicine initiatives hold for a more equitable, global healthcare system.
Find more about Consultant Connect here: https://www.consultantconnect.org.uk/
Follow Kat here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrin-kat-james/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Maya Dharampal-Hornby and Paul David speak to Nana Parry, co-founder of Cluso, a voice survey and engagement platform aimed at increasing public participation in local government.
Nana was inspired to start Cluso when he saw the decline in response rates to traditional surveys: household surveys had a 48% response rate a decade ago; in 2023 it was at 14%. If it continues at the same rate it’ll be down to 4% by 2033.
Nana shares the benefits of voice responses, especially for qualitative surveying, the current state of survey analysis, and Cluso's growth strategy, including understanding local nuances and innovative approaches to engage young people. Nana emphasizes the importance of making people's voices heard in local governance and the potential for technology to enhance democracy.
Find out more about Nana here :https://www.linkedin.com/in/nana-parry
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Maya Dharampal-Hornby and Paul David are joined by Jo-Jo Hubbard, co-founder and CEO at Electron.
Currently, the energy system is diverse and decentralised. Amidst this, flexible market platforms, like Electron’s, are emerging as the solution to help energy network operators to launch and coordinate multiple markets at scale.
On this podcast, Jo-Jo discusses the importance of engaging DERs in the market, how Electron is growing on the other side of the pond, and why ‘net zero’ might be a counter-productive phrase.
Find more about Electron here: https://electron.net/
Find more about Jo-Jo here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-jo-hubbard
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Maya Dharampal-Hornby and Savena Surana are joined by Andrew O Neill, Headteacher at All Saints Catholic College and CEO at Lighthouse Data.
All Saints is a school like no other; it has trialled a mobile phone ban, an 11-hour school day, and flexible working for teachers. On the podcast, Andrew discusses his reasons for these innovative approaches to education – including the impact of social media on students' mental health and academic performance, the importance of fostering community connections, and the significance of investing in teachers' well-being – and how he has found the media attention that they have attracted.
He also explains how data-driven insights, offered for free by Lighthouse Data, can transform a school’s performance.
Find more about Lighthouse Data here: https://www.lighthousedata.org/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Maya Dharampal-Hornby and Savena Surana are joined by Erika Anderson, co-founder and CCO at Storytell.ai and author of Building Humane Tech substack.
They discuss what humane technology means for Storytell.ai and how the team implements responsible design principles in the technology that they develop.
The episode also touches on the need for storytelling in business, the four different stages of people’s relationship with AI, and the growing dangers of AI companion bots.
Find more about Storytell.ai here: https://storytell.ai/
Follow Erika here (X): https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikamanderson/
Reading Building Humane Tech here: https://humanetech.substack.com/
And some other recommendations from Erika:
Read Erika’s draft Humane Tech product principles: https://humanetech.substack.com/p/draft-humane-product-principles
Watch Storytell’s webinar on building AI with integrity: https://web.storytell.ai/webinars/storytell-webinar-building-ai-with-integrity
Complete Storytell’s company workshop on algorithmic bias: https://web.storytell.ai/webinars/from-theory-to-practice-how-to-address-algorithmic-bias
Check out the Clean Communication framework here: https://www.clean-communication.com/
And listen to Undivided Attention episodes on Character.ai: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ksKxpSW9fMPNgUqHFcTLG?si=W6h6V1DDRwOp9uybStz9iw&nd=1&dlsi=e8c90a9ff3034ba9
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ahOQ34R03iUuEacQ62Vve?si=dfG4FnZhTjOyNwK6CPXL5g&nd=1&dlsi=bca81a06b79c4cc4
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Odun Eweniyi, co-founder and COO at PiggyVest. By providing easy-to-use tools for digital saving and micro-investing, PiggyVest has helped 5 million people grow their savings.
Odun shares her journey from tech journalism into fintech and the insights from the PiggyVest Savings Report 2024. Recognising social media as a tool to engage younger audiences and promote financial literacy, Odun explains the extent of her hands-on approach to PiggyVest’s accounts.
The episode also touches on other ways Odun is making inclusive platforms that empower individuals and communities - particularly women - in Nigeria. Odun co-founded The Feminist Coalition, which propelled the #EndSARS movement, and First Check Africa, a female-led angel fund that invests in women African tech at an early stage. More recently, she’s ventured into the world of podcasting with the Carousel Network, a podcast production company in Nigeria that amplifies female voices. Odun explains the obstacles feminists face in Nigeria, while reflecting on the progress the movement has made over the last decade.
Find more about Piggyvest here: https://www.piggyvest.com/
Follow Odun here (X): https://x.com/OdunEweniyi
And here (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/in/odunayoeweniyi
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Maya Dharampal-Hornby and Savena Surana speak to Ariana Alexander-Sefre, founder and co-CEO at Spoke, a music-based mental wellness app.
SPOKE hires artists, who are trained by psychologists, therapists and neuroscientists, to produce music that supports mental wellbeing. Through this, SPOKE provides an aggregated platform for people who can connect with young men and other underrepresented young people - musicians, cultural leaders, influential voices - to use their voice in the most impactful way.
They discuss how artists and mental health practitioners collaborate for SPOKE, and the need for a restructured approach to artist compensation and community building within the music industry.
Ariana also shares challenges she has encountered in growing SPOKE, the connection that exists between mental health and activism, and the importance of speaking out against systems of oppression–even when investment gets pulled as a result.
Find more about SPOKE here: https://spoke.world/
Download SPOKE here (and use it!): https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/spoke-music-meditate-sleep
Follow Ariana here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianasefre
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Tyler Denk, co-founder and CEO of beehiiv, a newsletter platform that helps creators monetise and grow their audiences.
beehiiv currently sends out over 2 billion emails per month - up from 500 million per month in August 2023. Tyler is no stranger to a fast-growing media organisation. In the episode, he shares his experience growing Morning Brew from 100,000 subscribers to over 3,500,000.
The episode also touches on the significance of transparency and user-centric development in driving the company's success, why today’s media climate has journalists migrating to newsletter platforms, and what startup he would build if his hands weren’t so full with beehiiv.
Find more about beehiiv here: https://www.beehiiv.com
Follow Tyler here (X): https://x.com/denk_tweets
And here (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-denk/
And here: https://mail.bigdeskenergy.com/
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Sara Berkai, founder and CEO of Ambessa Play. Ambessa Play is a social enterprise that designs educational toy kits and tools for children, with a focus on supporting displaced and refugee children.
The conversation centres around the importance of co-designing products with users - specifically, the importance of understanding the context of displaced children in product design.
Sara also shares insights on Ambessa’s marketing strategy (which she hadn’t spent a dime on until recently!), the impact of her academic background, and the state of edtech.
Find more about Ambessa Play here: https://ambessaplay.com/
Follow Sara here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saraberkai/
If you’re a content marketer who doesn’t believe the increasingly common wisdom that “AI will automate the boring parts of your job”, listen to this episode.
This week on Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Victor Ijidola, co-founder and CEO of Leaps.
Victor explains why Google is deranking your content. In short, people want insights from SMEs, not from content marketers who are, for the most part, abstracted from the issues they pen blogs about.
The conversation details the issues that PR and comms people and content marketers face when collaborating with subject matter experts - from the organisational faff to the trials of transcription - and how digital tools like Leaps can automate much of the process.
Find more about Leaps here: https://leapshq.com/
Follow Victor here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/content-strategist-victor/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Yaseen Rostom, Founder and CEO of Incredible.
Yaseen shares insights about the challenges of debt management, the importance of cash flow for small businesses, and how communities can be built within the fintech space.
The conversation underlines why digital infrastructure will reduce the stress that comes with managing finance, all while addressing the emotional aspects of financial management.
Find more about Incredible here: https://www.getincredible.com/post/hello-world
Follow Yaseen here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yrstm/?originalSubdomain=uk
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Gaurab Bansal, Executive Director of Responsible Innovation Labs.
Gaurab shares insights on the practice gap in responsible innovation and attributes it, largely, to the complex regulations US startups face, and the ever-changing political landscape–both impeding startups from scaling sustainably and responsibly.
The conversation also touches on the influence of Effective Altruism on policymakers in the US, and the impact of misinformation (AI-facilitated or otherwise) on democratic processes.
Find more about Responsible Innovation Labs here: https://www.rilabs.org/
Follow Gaurab here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurab-bansal/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Rushab Shah, CEO of OneHive.
Rushab speaks about the intersection between education, mindfulness and community engagement, exploring how technology can help educators understand better, and respond to, individuals’ psychosocial needs.
Rushab also touches on the cultural expectations placed on students, particularly within South Asian communities, the emerging hydrogen sector and its workforce demands, and why policymakers increasingly need to view education as a lifelong project.
Find more about OneHive here: https://onehive.ai/
Follow Rushab on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rushabmshah
Learn more about what we do at Literal Humans here: https://literalhumans.com/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Finn Stevenson, co-founder and CEO of Flock Health.
He discusses how Flok Health is reshaping physiotherapy within the NHS through automation and community healthcare. He highlights the challenges faced in delivering timely care for musculoskeletal conditions and the importance of integrating technology to improve access to effective.
Finn also shares insights on the regulatory landscape, the importance of patient choice, and the potential for scaling AI healthcare solutions across various conditions.
Find more about Flok Health here: https://flok.health/
Follow Finn on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-stevenson?originalSubdomain=uk
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Sunghee Park, Founder and CEO of SYNKii
Online teaching surged during Covid-19. But with music lessons requiring students and teachers to play in synchronicity, lags in connections that were commonplace on video calling platforms like Zoom, made it nearly impossible for music students to learn remotely. As an experienced private tutor of piano herself, Sunghee faced these challenges first hand, and so she decided to build a solution: SYNKii.
Tune into this episode now to hear why platforms like Zoom are inadequate for music learners, how data-driven insights can be used by teachers to personalise their music lessons, and the opportunities for and limitations of AR technologies in music education.
Find out more about SYNKii here: https://www.synkii.com/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Cien Solon, co-founder and CEO of LaunchLemonade and Director of Scale That Thing!.
AI advocate Cien Solon is fighting to make AI a tool at everyone’s disposal - an “AI for All” as Cien so pithily calls it. To help individuals and organisations harness the power of AI, Cien has founded Scale That Thing!, which offers more tailored services to help businesses scale with AI, and LaunchLemonade, a no-code platform for users to turn their ideas into an AI-powered business.
Tune into this episode now to hear how AI co-pilots can save you time, how LaunchLemonade is breaking barriers for women in AI, and the importance of diversifying investment.
Find out more about LaunchLemonade here: https://launchlemonade.app/
Find out more about Scale That Thing! here: https://www.scalethatthing.com/
Find out more about Cien’s work here: https://ciensolon.com/
Get in touch with Cien here: ai@ciensolon.com
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Steve Endacott, Chairman of Neural Voice and Neural River.
Neural Voice is a spin-off from incubator Neural River, a genAI platform enabling businesses to develop customer-assistance voicebots.
Tune into this episode now to hear Steve how Steve leveraged Neural Voice’s technology to make a bid for Parliament in the UK’s General Election, and how he believes AI will change the political landscape in the UK.
Find more about Neural River here: https://www.neuralriver.ai/
Find more about Neural Voice here: https://www.neural-voice.ai/
Find more about AI Steve here: https://www.ai-steve.co.uk/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Mickey Pardo, research fellow at Cornell University and former Postdoctoral Associate at Colorado State University.
Mickey studied the rumbles of savannah elephants in partnership with Save the Elephants, discovering that elephants’ naming system is very similar to the way in which human names work - much more than dolphins and parrots who have been previously touted as having the most human-like naming system.
Tune into this episode now to hear Mickey discuss the research and how he hopes it might help conservation efforts for elephants.
Read the full paper authored by Mickey Pardo, Kurt Fristrup, David S. Lolchuragi, Joyce Poole, Petter Granli, Cynthia Moss (Elephant Trust), Lain Douglas-Hamilton and George Wittemyer, here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.25.554872v1.full
And check out the work of Mickey’s collaborating partners:
https://www.savetheelephants.org/
https://www.elephantvoices.org/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Will Saunter, Co-Founder and Biosecurity Lead at BlueDot Impact.
The social enterprise offers 12-week, part-time courses in AI Alignment, AI Governance and Biosecurity. Alumni have gone on to pursue high impact ventures in AI and biosecurity, such as leading safety teams at top labs, becoming senior government policy makers and facilitating the courses themselves.
Tune into this episode now to hear how Will turned a university reading group into a learning offering that, to date, over 2500 people have completed from all over the world.
Find out more about BlueDot Impact here: https://bluedot.org/
Find out more about the Pandemics course here: https://biosecurityfundamentals.com/pandemics/
Apply to the Pandemics course before September 15 2024 here: https://biosecurityfundamentals.com/pandemics/
Find out more about the AI Alignment & Governance courses here: https://forms.bluedot.org/aBTNsdSm31iVur7uf1Nz
Apply to the AI Alignment course before October 6 2024 here: https://forms.bluedot.org/NliceQmUvMTfPDkVIYJy
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Ben Dodson, co-founder and CEO of Doowii.
Helping teachers harness AI to better understand and address their students’ needs, Doowoi helps non-technical users access data they previously couldn't, improving workflows and decision-making.
Tune into this episode now to hear Ben discuss the problems with AI plagiarism detectors, how personalise data science improves student outcomes, and how what he learnt about work culture at Google and Snapchat.
Find more about Doowii here: https://www.doowii.io/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Kevin Flyangolts, Founder & CEO of Aclid.
With biotechnology becoming increasingly digital and automated, biosecurity guidelines are constantly changing. Aclid enables end-to-end compliance for gene synthesis providers by automating biosecurity screenings, promoting education in the life science sector, and building trust between companies and customers.
Tune into this episode now to hear Kevin discuss how biosecurity concerns have evolved since covid-19, and explain why adaptive regulations, responsible practices, and automated screenings and verifications are the future of biosecurity.
Find more about aclid here: https://www.aclid.bio/
Get in touch with Kevin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevfly/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Brad Magnetta, co-founder of modlee.
With a growing demand for in-house AI and ML solutions, modlee automates, simplifies and pools insights about machine learning development.
Tune into this episode now to hear Brad discuss the distinction between knowledge loss and preservation, modlee’s plans to work with the developers of tomorrow, and why he’s excited about businesses building generative AI solutions.
Find out more about modlee here: https://www.modlee.ai/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Sophie Rossi, founder and CEO of HedonX.
With the femtech and sextech industries seeing a surge in sales during the pandemic, HedonX’s soon-to-launch range of intimate wellness products will satisfy this demand all while promoting the use of ethical marketing and sourcing.
Tune into this episode now to hear Sophie discuss the importance of breaking stigma around senior sexuality, the challenges that femtech and sextech founders face when marketing on Meta, and the €15,000 pay-to-play ticket companies like HedonX encounter when looking to sell in luxury department stores.
Find out more about HedonX here: https://www.instagram.com/hedonxofficial/
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Avion Gray, co-founder and CEO of Belong. As an investment platform that uses open banking and AI to assess customers for loans, Belong aims to make long-term investment more transparent and accessible for young people with limited capital.
Tune into this episode now to hear Avion discuss Belong’s campaigns to raise young people’s financial literacy, the importance of compounding to building wealth, and how Belong raised €3.4 million in pre-seed funding—the highest-ever pre-seed round by female founders in Europe.
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Elliot Coad, Founder and former CEO of Ecologi. As an all-in-one climate platform that aims to help SMBs reduce their carbon footprint and to fund climate projects, Ecologi’s projects range from reforestation in Brazil and providing fuel-efficient cooking stoves in Uganda to installing solar panels in Morocco and producing biochar from waste in Wales.
Tune into this episode now to hear Elliot discuss the telltale signs of greenwashing, how companies can be held accountable for delivering on their sustainability promises, and the importance of humanising B2B marketing in order to engage audiences and scale businesses in the climate action space.
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Guillermo Campoamor, Founder & CEO of Meep.
Meep provides companies and cities with the data and intelligence tools they need to achieve more efficient, sustainable trips for everyone. Within the app, Meep offers multimodal route planning, visualisations of transportation options, and connection with a single, centralized payment system in order to facilitate seamless and accessible travel.
Tune into this episode now to hear Guillermo outline the future of urban transformation, the importance of user experience (both physically and digitally), and why cities must invest in transport infrastructure.
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, hosts Paul David and Maya Dharampal-Hornby are joined by Molly Johnson-Jones—CEO and co-founder of tech start-up, Flexa.
Flexa is revolutionizing the way we work by helping flexible employers get discovered and boost their employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand. Molly co-founded Flexa to pave the way for more inclusive and accessible work conditions having been herself fired from a role at an investment bank after asking for flexible work options to manage autoimmune symptoms.
Tune into this episode now to hear Molly explain how return to office policies are detrimental to companies' DEI efforts, and how Flexa harnesses AI to counter these mandates.
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Dipanwita Das—CEO and co-founder of tech start-up, Sorcero.
Sorcero is revolutionizing the world by utilizing AI to analyze and transform complex medical data into actionable insights. The model also uses natural language processing to help with this, and Sorcero has been awarded the #1 Small and Mighty Company in the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024 list.
As well as leading Sorcero into award-winning status, Dipanwita has also been named a 40 Under 40 honoree in 2024. Tune in now to find out more about how Dipanwita has managed these incredible wins.
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, our guest is Antonio Ribeiro, CEO and founder of Yurtle, the world’s first insurtech company and care management platform for employees balancing work and unpaid caregiving for a loved one.
According to the 2021 UK Census, there were 5.7 million unpaid carers in the UK, or 9% of the population. 2.5 million of them are in full-time employment.
In this eye-opening and passionate conversation, host Paul David and Antonio discuss the intersection of insurtech and caregiver burnout, highlighting the challenges faced by caregivers in the workplace and the potential for insurtech to provide support.
Tune in now to learn more!
This week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us sees Paul speaking to Devon Geary, a senior project manager of a membership organization, to discuss trauma-informed tech, what it is, and why we need to consider it.
Devon moved to the UK on a Tech Nation visa and worked here for three years at Birmingham Tech Week. She is an expert in trauma-informed tech and theatre practice, and talks to us about how trauma can affect the workplace and the support available.
In this episode, Paul and Devon go through exactly what trauma-informed tech is and how it can be used to help organizations, as well as Devon’s experiences in the tech industry. Dial in to find out more!
On this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David welcomes Nat Whalley, co-founder and CEO of Organise, a startup that empowers workers to shape the future of work in the UK and US.
Before founding Organise, Nat worked for grassroots organisations like 38 Degrees and Avaaz and led digital strategies at Save the Children. In March 2024, she was named one of the Top 100 Women in Social Enterprise.
In this illuminating conversation, Nat discusses the role of technology in promoting pro-worker outcomes in the gig economy and the importance of worker input in developing and deploying AI algorithms.
Paul and Nat also discuss the challenges of addressing workplace harassment and bullying, and the role of anonymous reporting tools in enabling workers to speak out without fear of retribution.
Listen now to find out more!
In this week’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Anastasia Pavlovic—CEO of climate tech company, Eion.
After completing her studies in electrical engineering and biosystems, Anastasia started a career in agriculture and climate, becoming a woman in STEM. Since stepping into the role as CEO, Eion has been named one of TIME’s top Greentech businesses in 2024.
Eion uses Olivine—a silicate rock—to replace the lime farmers usually use. This rock balances soil pH while removing CO2 from the atmosphere in the agricultural heartlands of the USA.
As well as this, Anastasia touches upon her experiences as a woman in STEM, as well as how she juggles being a new mother with her demanding role as CEO in a male-dominated industry. Tune in now to find out more!
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David welcomes Zaynab Tariq, Co-Founder & COO of CerealBox to the show.
After working in the nonprofit sector, Zaynab realised that the sector was lagging well behind in terms of tech adoption—and set out on a mission to change it.
CerealBox combines growth hacking strategies from marketing with research from the third sector to help charities raise more funds—over £40 million so far.
In this enlightening discussion, Zaynab and Paul discuss CerealBox’s rapid growth and innovative approach, including the agency's unique marketing strategies and impact on branding opportunities.
You’ll also hear about the challenges faced by the nonprofit sector in adopting new technologies for digital fundraising, and how CerealBox is revolutionizing charitable giving. Tune in now!
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Robin Peters, co-founder and CEO of Snugg, a fintech that focuses on home energy efficiency.
Robin is an engineer and entrepreneur who has led and founded several businesses, including deadlyne, which helps businesses meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Before that, he worked at Aviva, Ernst & Young, and Scottish Widows, among others.
Snugg is developing a platform to help homeowners identify, finance and implement energy efficiency improvements to their homes.
In today’s episode, Robin provides technical insights, highlighting the problem of inadequate insulation and the need for sustainable solutions. Paul and Robin discuss the challenges of retrofitting, including high costs and the need for personalization and education. They also explore strategies for decarbonizing homes, including carbon credits and industrial-scale solutions.
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, host Paul David is joined by Michael Wood Lewis, Co-Founder & CEO of Front Porch Forum (FPF), an online community-building service in Vermont. Launched in 2006, FPF aims to connect neighbors through local forums that only local people can access.
Tune in to hear Paul and Michael discuss the benefits of local online forums like Front Porch Forum in connecting neighbors and building well-connected neighborhoods. Michael shares the history of FPF and its evolution over the years, highlighting the role of technology in local community building.
There’s also an enlightening discussion about diversity and inclusion, and creating welcoming spaces for neighborhoods to come together both online and in the community. Listen to the episode now.
Ross Mitchell is the CEO and founder of ResearchGOAT, an AI-powered qualitative research platform that helps businesses understand their customers and audiences.
He’s also the creative leader at NEOL, a London-based company that helps businesses hire creative leaders for fractional support and assemble project teams quickly. Ross has worked with clients including Netflix, Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung.
In today’s episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, Ross joins host Paul to discuss how generative artificial intelligence is transforming the tech industry, the art of prompt engineering and how to get the most out of AI tools, and the ethical considerations around AI.
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, we welcome Simon Court—coach, founder of Value Partnership (a leadership consultancy firm), and author of ‘Founder’s Legacy: Fifty Game-Changing Leadership Lessons for Building a Great Business’.
After working as a management consultant at YSC and HR Director at Ericsson, Simon became a leadership coach and co-founded Value Partnership with his wife, Jane, in 1998. Simon has helped two tech companies (Miniclip and Tipico) to grow into unicorns in the last 10 years–experience that inspired him to distil his knowledge into the book.
Join us as Paul and Simon discuss the differences between leaders and founders, how great leaders are formed and how advances in technology, such as AI and virtual reality and augmented reality, are being leverage to support leadership training.
Dominic Shales is the founder and CEO of not one but two purpose driven companies: Reset Media, a digital publisher, and DUNE Communications, a corporate comms agency.
He also acts as fractional CMO for Nexus Climate, a business that creates and nurtures climate startups, and Carbon Re, an AI climate tech pioneering industrial decarbonisation.
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, Paul, Will and Dominic dive deep into the topic of industrial decarbonisation, discussing the biggest industrial culprits for greenhouse gas emissions and how lower-carbon alternatives can help to reduce those emissions.
Through an evidence-based, data-informed approach paired with leading practices, Feminuity has helped more than 100 companies worldwide build stronger, more inclusive organizations.
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, Dr. Saska joins Paul and Wull to discuss the importance of DEI in the tech industry, the threat AI algorithmic bias poses to DEI efforts, and mainstream backlash.
She also talks about her views on integrating DEI competencies into every aspect of a business, rather than relying on a single chief diversity officer or related role.
Insurtech is poised to narrow the gender health gap. Companies like Juniper have raised millions in pre-seed funding to offer reproductive healthcare insurance. Founders Ambra Zhang and Sam Pratt highlight the overlooked niche of high-frequency, moderate-cost healthcare, touching on a range of conditions including contraception, STD testing, and reproductive organ cancers.
How will this focus on reproductive health transform employee well-being and corporate responsibility? Paul and Will discuss the emergence of specialised insurance models like Juniper's in addressing the comprehensive health needs of employees in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Jermaine Murray is making strides toward diversity in tech by helping Black job seekers secure their dream roles through his company, JupiterHR, having already celebrated 400 success stories. Despite Black individuals making up a significant portion of the population, they are severely underrepresented in the tech industry, with Black women holding a mere 0.7% of IT roles. How can companies better support Black employees and ensure inclusivity? Paul explores the critical role of representation, inclusivity, and support systems in expanding Black representation in tech with Jermaine Murray in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
In the world's most significant election year, social media faces is struggling to safeguard democracy, with soaring political ad spend and peaking geopolitical tensions. The advent of generative AI has brought in new problems, with rising concerns over deepfakes and other forms of digital impersonation. How can tech companies and governments counter these threats to maintain democratic processes? Sahar Massachi's insights from his tenure at Facebook to co-founding the Integrity Institute reveal both hurdles and hopeful strategies for a more secure online democracy. Paul and Will explore the intricate relationship between democracy, social media, and emerging technologies in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
The tech industry's gender gap is slowly closing, with women's participation in tech roles in the UK and US showing marginal increases since the pandemic. Surprisingly, despite advancements, only a small fraction of tech leadership roles are held by women, and a significant gender pay gap persists. How can innovative education technologies like imagi, which focuses on making Python coding accessible and fun for girls, play a role in bridging this gap?
Dora Palfi shares insights into overcoming biases with AI-enhanced education and her journey in founding imagi to empower young women in tech. Paul and Will delve into these challenges and solutions in closing the tech gender gap with Dora Palfi on this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Femtech is breaking new ground by extending its focus to include menopause and endometriosis, marking a shift from its traditional emphasis on fertility. Despite reaching over $1 billion in global VC investment in 2021, the sector faces criticism for not fully addressing broader health concerns affecting women and LGBTQ+ communities. How can femtech evolve to bridge these critical gaps in healthcare? Consider Béa Fertility, under Tess Cosad's leadership, which is pioneering inclusive, affordable fertility care with its innovative at-home Intracervical Insemination kit, challenging the traditional and costly routes to fertility treatment. Paul and Will team up with Tess Cosad to explore the intersection of technology, inclusivity, and fertility care in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
The voluntary carbon market is critical for companies like Kickstarter, allowing them to offset carbon emissions by investing in environmental projects, aiming for carbon neutrality. Despite its growth and potential, the market faces criticisms for greenwashing and ineffectiveness, with calls for increased transparency and integrity in carbon offsetting practices. How can the market address these challenges to ensure its future viability? Paul and Will discuss the complexities and future prospects of the voluntary carbon market in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
AI is transforming marketing strategies and agency operations. John Higginson, Founder and CEO of Higginson Strategy, emphasizes AI's role in augmenting human creativity, rather than replacing jobs, through examples like the Cadbury campaign and Sephora's AI chatbot. However, concerns about AI mismanagement and the importance of ethical use lurk underneath. How will agencies navigate these challenges while maximizing AI's potential? Paul and Will team up with John to explore these dynamics in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Zareen Ali, CEO and Co-Founder of Cogs AI, aims to redefine mental wellbeing support for the neurodiverse community, recognizing the unique challenges and strengths of individuals with neurodiversity. Neurodiversity encompasses a range of neurological differences, and embracing it can enhance creativity, problem-solving, and productivity in the workplace. However, societal and workplace structures often overlook the needs of neurodiverse individuals, leading to higher unemployment rates and mental health issues among this group. Cogs AI seeks to bridge this gap by offering tailored support that not only aids in mental wellbeing but also leverages the unique abilities of neurodiverse individuals for greater societal and economic benefits. Paul and Will discuss the transformative potential of inclusive technologies like Cogs AI in fostering a more supportive and diversified society in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Blockchain technology's decentralised nature offers transformative potential for international aid, yet adoption is hindered by trust, security, complexity, and regulatory challenges. Examples like UkraineDAO and UNHCR's use of blockchain in Ukraine highlight Web3's growing role in humanitarian efforts, despite concerns over the tech sector's profit motives and risks to vulnerable communities. How can aid organisations balance innovation with responsibility?
Dr. Melyn McKay's Coala Pay seeks to navigate these waters, offering a fresh approach to aid delivery. Paul and Will join Melyn McKay to discuss blockchain's impact on international aid in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
In 2023, the UK's venture capital landscape showcased significant trends, aligning in some aspects with the US and diverging notably from European counterparts, particularly in government support for startups.
As the panel delves into predictions for 2024, they anticipate shifts in investment focus, influenced by the preceding year's outcomes and the broader economic environment. How will these trends impact the UK's tech scene, and could they herald a new era of investment strategy? Paul, Will, and Chris Sisserian explore these dynamics in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
- The Venture Capital Market
- Dealroom Report on Climate Tech
- Dealroom Article on AI
- 'Dry Powder' Article by Forbes
- VC Predictions for 2024
Tech can't always save us, but when it comes to supporting neurodivergent individuals, apps like Tiimo are making a real difference. From aiding neurodivergent teens to empowering them in society, Tiimo's journey from a startup to a globally recognized planner app highlights the evolving role of technology in inclusivity. But what about the broader landscape, especially in education where resources for neurodivergent children are stretched thin? Paul, Will, and Rebecca discuss the challenges and opportunities in the edtech sector for neurodiversity in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
The intersection of veganism and technology reveals fascinating innovations and challenges. Tech aids in vegan diets through apps for finding plant-based restaurants and deciphering food labels, alongside the revolutionary introduction of 3D-printed meats. However, technology also highlights environmental concerns in veganism, like the high water usage and carbon footprint of avocados, yet offers solutions through water-saving technologies and regenerative farming. Can technology balance the environmental impact of vegan products while promoting sustainability? Paul, Will, and Rebecca discuss the complexities and potential of veganism enhanced by technology in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links: * iNews * The Guardian * Environment Europa * Greenmatch
Technological innovations are reshaping the housing landscape, addressing affordability and sustainability. Innovative companies like Hometap and OptiFunder are revolutionizing property accessibility, offering creative financing solutions. Surprisingly, advancements in sustainable construction, like 3D concrete printing and BIM software, are not only making housing more eco-friendly but also more attainable. Can technology truly be the key to solving the housing crisis? Splitero offers one such unique solution to the problem.
Paul, Will, and Rebecca discuss these technological strides in solving the housing crisis in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links: * Moneyweek * Research Briefings * Politics Home * HousingWire
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2023 witnessed a significant decline in tech funding, especially in FinTech, and a disillusionment with hyped sectors like NFTs and the metaverse. Despite these setbacks, AI, particularly OpenAI's ChatGPT, surged, marking a mainstream embrace of AI in business and personal spheres. What implications might these shifts have for the tech landscape in 2024? Paul and Will discuss the tech trends of 2023 (such as funding declines and the rise of AI) and predict 2024's focus on social media, generative AI, cybersecurity and GreenTech in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Christmas ads in 2023 have pushed the envelope, blending emotional storytelling with advanced technology. From PETA's provocative animation urging veganism, to John Lewis's quirky 'Snapper' and Amazon's nostalgic 'Joy Ride', each ad uses tech to resonate with viewers in different ways. Paul and Will explore the tech behind the top festive ads of 2023.
Black Friday, a symbol of consumerism, ironically follows Thanksgiving, a day of gratitude. In 2022, global businesses made a staggering $65.3 billion during Black Friday sales. This shopping frenzy has serious environmental repercussions: Black Friday 2021 in the UK alone was expected to emit greenhouse gases equivalent to the weight of 3679 blue whales. Is the allure of discounts worth the environmental cost? Paul, Will, and Rebecca discuss the complex impacts of Black Friday consumerism on society, the environment, and businesses in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links: * EuroNews * GreenAlliance * ClimateLab * The Guardian * Country Living * Crunchbase
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After a 118-day strike, Hollywood actors have reached an agreement, marking the end of a historic work stoppage. There were concerns about AI undermining the roles of writers and actors, and addressing this was central to the agreement.
The US government is now looking to tackle AI's risks, prompting debates on enforcement mechanisms. As AI embeds deeper into creative sectors, many questions arise: What protections will society demand? Will protests and backlash persist in these realms? Join hosts Paul, Will, and Rebecca as they dissect the strike's resolution and delve into AI's broader impact on creative industries.
Links:
* Wired
* Bloomberg
* The Hollywood Reporter
* Reuters
* The Guardian
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The downfall of WeWork, X and other businesses is a tale of ambition clashing with reality. As leaders like Neumann and Musk navigated controversial leadership styles and aggressive expansion, their companies' vulnerabilities surfaced, culminating in financial and reputational damage.
How will these events shape future leadership in the tech industry? Paul, Will, and Rebecca dive into these questions in the latest episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links: * The Guardian * The New York Times * The Drum
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The cryptocurrency world is still recovering from the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, painting a bleak image of the FTX founder. Meanwhile, X transforms under Elon Musk's guidance, sparking a scattered mix of praise and scrutiny. How has this tech titan's leadership influenced the social media giant? As debates about X and FTX rage on, the everyday human watches in ironic amusement. Paul, Will, and Rebecca dive into these insights in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links: * BBC News * CNBC News * Wired * The Verge * Metro
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Brands face immense pressure when their data is compromised. While some react promptly to assure consumers, others grapple with public relations nightmares. Can ethical hacking be the silver lining in the murky world of cyber threats? What if brands collaborated with these white hats? Will, Rebecca, and Savena discuss the varied responses of brands to hacks in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links: * Wired * Vox * Gawker * The Wrap * Newsweek * Bugcrowd
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Digital scent technology is making waves with an impressive expected Compound Annual Growth Rate of approximately 9% from 2021 to 2027 fueled by the rise of smart devices and advancements in the tech world. Yet, it remains to be seen if this is a tangible tech marvel or just a passing trend. Can we truly digitize our olfactory experiences? Paul and Rebecca discuss the burgeoning world of smell-based technology and its potential impact on our digital experiences in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links:1. Odeuropa 2. Kickstarter for Eau de Space 3. Osmo funding statistics 4. Positive article on smell-based tech by OVR 5. The possible dangers of synthetic smells 6. Guardian article on synthetic smells 7. WebMD article on the intersection of smell tech and VR
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Voice search is revolutionizing brand interaction. AI-driven chatbots, like ChatGPT, are now chattier than ever, responding vocally in real-time. Imagine a world where your device understands not just words, but emotions. Still, what if there's more to communication than just voice? Paul, Will, Rebecca, and Savena discuss the cutting-edge blend of AI and voice search in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Climate tech is radically transforming green infrastructure and sustainable urban spaces, extending from agriculture supply chains to monitoring digital carbon footprints. Yet, with its expansive scope, does climate tech truly promise a greener future? Last week marked the launch of a notable global climate tech venture studio, underlining the growing significance of climate tech. But questions around its efficacy persist. Paul, Will and Rebecca join Kasheef Wyzard of Dream.org to dive deep into the multifaceted world of climate technology in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links:* BXVentures
* Forbes
* Global news wire
* The Greenhouse
* OECD
* Global Startup Studio Network
* Post-Mortam Study
* CTVC
* Yale Program on Climate Change
* Climate Action Tracker.
* Axios
* Shell’s net-zero focus
Your thoughts fuel our podcast's evolution. Participate in our survey and share your feedback here.
September brings a mix of insights and noteworthy happenings in the tech world. From the intriguing world of B2B SaaS sales to the hefty fine faced by TikTok for breaching EU data laws, the month has been bustling with activity. Surprisingly, Babylon Health, a once-prominent name in digital health, has gone bust. What insights do these events provide into the evolving tech landscape? Alternative perspectives unveil more facets of these developments. Paul, Will, Rebecca, and Savena discuss these varied topics in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
Links covered in this episode:* Report from Capchase on B2B SaaS Sales Cycles * Tiktok fined for collecting children’s data * Babylon shareholders wiped out in restructuring deal * Wired– The fall of Babylon is a warning for AI unicorns * Parsa refers to Babylon workers as ‘Babylonians’ * Major concerns raised about Babylon’s impact on the NHS * Babylon app admits GP data suffered a breach
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The digital lifestyle has subtle implications for our mental well-being—and not all of it is negative. Studies show that online therapy, for instance, can be just as effective as its in-person counterpart. Consider the duality: technology both challenges and aids mental health. The hosts of Tech Can’t Save Us discuss the intricate relationship between technology and mental health and invite Ashleigh Tennent, Co-founder and CEO of More Happi to share her journey of creating an online space for coaching in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
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The evolution of technology has turbocharged user experiences. Yet, not all that glitters in the tech world ensures a satisfying UX. As AI and personalisation become game-changers, how do they influence the digital landscape? Paul, Will, and Savena discuss the dynamics of user experience and call on insights from experts Dan Hyde and Alex Blondin, co-founders of Everything Is User Experience in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
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Digital payments have undergone transformational changes over the years. While they offer unmatched convenience, concerns about security persist. Could the rise of cryptocurrencies herald another major shift? What societal impacts can we anticipate from these trends? Paul, Rebecca, and Savena discuss the evolution and future of Digital Payments in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
August saw the rollout of the UK's Online Safety Bill, sparking debate and concern among tech giants. Meanwhile, the space race heated up with India's Vikram Lander aiming for the moon, shadowed by Russia's Luna-25 mishap. Could the cosmos be the next tech battleground? As regulatory challenges mount on Earth, might tech leaders look to the stars? Paul, Rebecca, and Savena discuss the interplay of online safety regulations and celestial ambitions in this episode of Tech Can't Save Us.
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Bootstrapping and VC funding offer unique growth paths for businesses. While bootstrapping celebrates autonomy, VC funding boasts rapid scaling opportunities. What factors dictate the ideal choice for B2B startups? Economic conditions and evolving VC trends suggest alternatives. Paul, Rebecca, and Savena discuss the intricacies of bootstrapping versus VC funding in this Tech Can't Save Us episode.
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In 2010, high-frequency algorithms helped trigger a severe market crash, vaporizing roughly $1 trillion in a matter of minutes. Today, the volatility associated with the stock market has inspired banks such as JPMorgan to use machine-learning applications in some of their buy-side trading strategies. What is the role of automation in the world of wealth and investment management, and how is the rise of robo-advisors shifting the ground beneath our financial feet? Paul, Will, and Rebecca are joined by Steven Wang, founder and CEO of dub, to discuss wealth, investment, and the tech that’s taking finance to new heights.
Gone are the days when Food Tech was an unfamiliar subject introduced to you in high school. Today, UK adults judge a restaurant by its presence on social media, the number of robots in the European food tech industry is well over 30,000, and over 50% of Brits call food delivery an essential part of their lives. How has technology integrated with food over the years, and what are the consequences of this increasingly close partnership? Join Paul, Will, and Rebecca, along with Alex Bond, CEO of Fresh Check, as they explore the fascinating world of plates and pixels.
It’s been a fascinating four weeks for tech nerds—from the launch (and decline?) of “twitter-buster” Threads, to Twitter’s own CEO sunsetting the bird in favor of “X”, we’ve had a month that’s practically begging for a review. That, combined with the recently celebrated ‘Fintech Day’ (1 August), makes the foundation of this week’s pod—with your resident humans Paul, Will, and Rebecca.
91% of leading businesses have ongoing investments in artificial intelligence—and that number just went up by the time you read this sentence. There’s no denying that AI is shaping up to become the revolution of the decade. What does this mean for employment? Will AI assist us or kick us out of business? What benefits and threats does it pose to the job market? And most importantly, can adaptability (arguably our most human trait) help us thrive alongside AI to achieve what was once impossible?
Suspected androids Paul and Will discuss.
With 33% of college students in the US taking at least one online course, it’s safe to say that we’re turning over a new leaf in global education. What are the benefits and trade-offs of online learning? Is the UK doing enough to make it as equitable as possible? And can our newest old friend, AI, step in to help revolutionise the future of learning? Catch Paul, Will, and Rebecca discussing these questions in a thought-provoking episode of TCSU.
Why do almost half of women in tech drop out by age 35? Does diversity in tech matter? Can government-led initiatives really make the tech sector more diverse — and if not, what are the alternative solutions? Rocío Medina van Nierop — co-founder and CEO of Latinas in Tech — joins us to answer these questions and more.
To learn more about the incredible work Latinas In Tech is doing visit www.latinasintech.org
In a world driven by rapid technological advancements, the future holds both excitement and uncertainty. Join us as we explore the intersection of technology, society, and our shared future. We delve into the coolest tech breakthroughs across various industries, discussing whether technology can save us from our most pressing challenges, such as the threat of climate change and poverty.
From traditional business verticals to new technologies like the Metaverse, and Web 3, we question the boundaries of what's possible and look at the challenges and opportunities ahead. We also examine the interplay between innovations that can make an impact and those that can generate profits, plus the significance of government investment in addressing this issue.
One intriguing avenue we explore is whether artificial intelligence (AI) has a place in an agency built on the concept of human-to-human connections. We talk about how our agency is navigating the growth of AI, using it to add some firepower to our work while keeping our engagements authentic and meaningful.
Still, on the issue of AI, we’re joined by Suhair Khan, the founder of Open-Ended, a cross-disciplinary lab and AI incubator.
Suhair shares her inspiration for starting the organization and sheds light on the common challenges faced by creative technologists. We finish off the chat with Suhair’s aspirations, her views on the need for holistic ecosystems to make a bigger impact, and some talk about an Open-Ended conference happening later this year on the future of intelligence. There will be free tickets for those who can’t afford them, so be sure to stay tuned for more!
You can connect with Suhair on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suhairk/ (where she likes replying to messages) and learn more about the work the Open-Ended team is doing at: https://www.openended.design/
This week, Will and Rebecca discuss the Oceangate Titan submersible disaster that killed five people — including the company’s founder, Stockton Rush — and what we can learn from it about the need for regulation in tech.
Despite numerous warnings from industry experts and a lack of regulation, Rush pushed ahead with the fatal expedition, reflecting a prevailing attitude among super-rich entrepreneurs that they know better than anyone else.
Will and Rebecca discuss the barriers to regulation, whistleblowers, and what really lies behind moves towards tougher regulation in the EU and UK. Are dark forces at play? And whose interests are really being served?
There are obvious parallels between the Titan disaster and the tech industry — the conversation around the regulation of social media has been going on for a couple of decades, and more recently, AI has come under the regulation spotlight.
How can we strike a balance between regulation and innovation in tech and ensure regulations guarantee ethical and privacy standards? Is regulation always good, or does it stifle innovation and serve hidden agendas? Tune in for Will and Rebecca’s takes on these issues and more.
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, we’re joined by Dami Hastrup, the Co-Founder and CEO of Moonhub, a virtual reality (VR) training platform that helps teams gain and retain knowledge through interactive VR scenarios.
Before welcoming our guest, we take a moment to celebrate London Tech Week, exploring the dynamic landscape of the UK's VR and AR market, plus what lies ahead in this rapidly growing and ever-evolving space. We also delve into the UK’s strategy to lead the future of web technology and the tightening regulation around AI.
We’re then joined by Dami, who tells us how he founded Moonhub after discovering that the training experiences he had during his internships and actual work were inconsistent. Dami highlights, “But there was one thing that was consistent, and that is people didn't remember anything… You'd spend so much time training but people just didn't remember anything.”
This realization sparked the birth of Moonhub, a platform designed to deliver training in an immersive and captivating manner, while also offering valuable data and insights regarding individual performance within these environments.
We jump into the distinctive features that set Moonhub apart from other solutions in the market, and Dami lets us know that a lot of what the company does is based on a patented scoring system, which provides very valuable data. Our conversation shifts toward the significant contributions made by Moonhub's co-founders, leveraging their diverse skill sets to propel the company's overall success.
Then, we talk about how Moonnhub is addressing any potential ethical concerns surrounding the use of AI, as well as how the company remains attuned to the evolving needs of different industries, consistently updating its training modules to meet industry standards.
As we wrap up our chat, Dami shares his journey in the tech space, what Moonhub hopes to achieve in the future, and how important it is for startup founders to be able to adapt and learn at breakneck speed in order to survive.
To learn more about Dami and the work the Moonhub team is doing, visit the following links: * Dami’s LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/damihastrup * Moonhub website: https://themoonhub.com/
Tech Can't Save Us returns for its highly anticipated third season! In this season, we’ll dive into the current state of technology both in the UK and globally, offering valuable insights and analysis.
Joining our resident wizards Paul and Will is our new co-host, Rebecca Headman. With her extensive experience as a podcast producer and expertise in social media and PR, Rebecca has successfully elevated numerous brands and businesses in her career. Together, the trio kicks off the third season of the podcast by examining the London tech scene three years after Brexit.
Our conversation begins with a look at the gradual decline of London as an appealing hub for tech startups and the consequential rise of France as a potential candidate to replace its position. Currently, France's tech startups have secured over €10 billion in funding, while London's tech startups have raised over £50 billion, placing London in the lead. However, there are various social, economic, and political factors that may jeopardize London's standing. Will initiates the discussion by highlighting a concerning trend: "We've witnessed a 20% drop in VC funding for London's tech sector amidst economic downturns, such as the Contra ENEOS situation. In contrast, France has experienced an 8% increase."
As the conversation progresses, our trio explores the growing options for alternative tech hubs within the UK, including Manchester, Edinburgh, and Leeds. Paul introduces the concept of a generational shift, which has prompted tech workers based in London to migrate to other parts of the country. "London is exerting tremendous pressure on individuals, pushing them to explore these emerging hubs. They are taking their talent and knowledge with them, and companies are either following suit or wisely predicting this trend and hiring accordingly," Paul explains.
Finally, we discuss some valuable guidance and insights to assist tech startups in thriving within this unstable economic climate. Will and Paul share their best insights on this matter, offering a much-needed push in the right direction. As the tech industry continues to evolve, adaptability and innovation become paramount, and strategies for long-term success become more important than ever.
Ai-jen also holds the titles of next-generation labor leader, author, and leading voice in the women's movement. Plus, she’s an award-winning organizer who has spent over two decades organizing with women who work in the care economy doing childcare, aging and disability care, and cleaning.
We start our conversation by looking at a piece on domestic worker health and safety protection, which revealed that in one study, 51% of all survey respondents had been pressured by their employer to work in hazardous conditions. Furthermore, approximately 85% of respondents reported workplace injuries that caused chronic back, shoulder, arm, and leg pain.
Highlighting how technology can improve health and safety for domestic workers and all workers facing these sorts of conditions, Ai-Jen says, “When we think about how technology in this period has been utilized, it's really been about designing for convenience and efficiency for a consumer. It hasn't been designed to enhance the quality of work and life for workers. And so, if it were deployed in that direction, miracles could happen.”
Ai-jen also shares how she wishes that the tech space would put a bit more focus on addressing the safety issues care workers face in the workplace. “There's so much talent that's being deployed towards a little bit better food delivery app experience. And I just think we need to deploy that talent, that creativity, that design logic, that sense and spirit of innovation to how we make life better for everyday people,” she explains.
We then explore the general underappreciation of caregivers and domestic workers a bit more, before diving into what governments, countries, and organizations can do to combat this, as well as why there is almost societal neglect of such important roles. Stressing the importance of care roles, Ai-jen talks about why Harvard economist Larry Katz refers to care jobs as ‘triple dignity jobs.’ “[It’s] because they’ve enabled dignity for the workers, the people who rely on this care, and family members who are just stressed out and pressed dealing with this issue,” Ai-jen tells us.
As our conversation progresses, we discuss what can be done to prevent worker mistreatment, and Ai-jen tells us about her work with the NDWA. When asked about her personal journey that led to her positions at NDWA and Caring Across Generations, Ai-jen admits she has no idea how she got there, but she expresses her excitement to be a part of all the meaningful work.
The conversation concludes with a discussion of Ai-jen's biggest industry frustrations and an enlightening lighting round in which we get to know her on a more fun, cheeky level.
To find out more about the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Caring Across Generations visit the websites:
- National Domestic Workers Alliance: https://www.domesticworkers.org/
- Caring Across Generations: https://caringacross.org/
This week, Nina Mohanty, CEO and co-founder of Bloom Money, joins Paul in the studio. Paul and Will first saw Nina on a panel at the SIFTED Summit in 2022 and have been fangirling ever since, so we had to get her on the show.
Nina is the American-born daughter of an Indian father and Taiwanese mother who grew up in Silicon Valley and is now a fintech founder. Paul and Nina bond over their experiences working for Obama (as senator and president, respectively) before jumping into the first article about the $800 billion sent as remittances in 2022.
“There are so many more ways to send money abroad today,” Nina explains, adding that the proliferation of remittance companies is making sending money home more accessible. She points out that rising remittances also reflect the growing numbers of migrant workers, refugees, and asylum seekers that will only continue to grow in the coming years.
The second article is about Bloom’s participation in Tech Nation’s Libra program that supported underrepresented founders in the UK tech sector. Nina laments the demise of Tech Nation; both she and Paul came to the UK on a Tech Nation visa. “It was separate where it needed to be separate and inclusive where it needed to be as well,” says Nina, referring to the balance between safe spaces for underrepresented founders and inclusion in wider Tech Nation events that Libra offered.
Although Nina has mixed feelings about such initiatives, “I will always root for these programs because there’s such a lack of diversity still, and we see really abysmal numbers for VC funding in both the US and UK.”
The third article is about how mobile money services are powering financial inclusion for women. “One thing that has jumped out at me is the state of being time-poor,” Nina says. “For some people, time is literally money.” She explains how Bloom helps people save time so they can do something more productive — or more enjoyable.
The conversation segues into Bloom Money and the concept it was founded on — “a savings club that is popular in the global South” — before the usual lightning round. Tune in to hear what Nina thinks is the evillest application of tech and her predictions for the future.
To learn more about Nina and Bloom Money:* https://bloommoney.co * https://www.linkedin.com/company/bloom-money/ * https://www.instagram.com/bloommoney.co/?hl=en
Tong, who is a computer scientist by training, was once an investment banker, and she also founded a machine learning company, which she grew to 40 people before exiting.
First, we look at a Bloomberg article that shows that roughly 56% of North American-based investors expect to allocate capital to fund managers who invest significantly or exclusively in women-founded businesses. Tong agrees that the number of initiatives to invest in women has increased, but the reality is not so encouraging. “To quote [the] most recent State of European tech report from Atomico, unfortunately, only 1% of funding [went] to women founders in Europe last year, which was reduced from 2% a year before. So that's not as positive,” she clarifies.
Tong believes that changing the status quo requires considering three elements: empowering women to enter entrepreneurship, technology, and VC from the time they are in school; investing more in managers from diverse backgrounds and female mentors; and bringing in more female angel investors and limited partners (LPs).
The discussion then shifts towards getting more women into venture capital, as well as some of the challenges Tong has faced throughout her career, often as the only woman in the room. "So far, one of the [biggest] challenges is the [limited] focus on providing funding to diverse fund managers, who can then invest in more diverse founders," she observes. She also adds that childcare is another challenge, particularly when women want to occupy demanding top positions.
We finally turn to what inspired Tong to found Pact, the various layers of meaning behind the cool company name, and the company's ultimate goal. As we wrap up, Tong shares her personal journey in the tech and VC spaces, and as always, leads us into the lightning round. Tong explains that human bias is one problem she believes tech can’t solve, and she offers some insightful advice on balancing profit and purpose.
To learn more about Pact, visit the website: http://pactvc.com/.
You can also reach out to Tong to get more insights about getting into VC on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonggu/
We start off by diving into a piece on a report from LADBible that states only 35% of Brits support cannabis legalization. Stephen believes that the public is still neglecting cannabis because they are unfamiliar with the plant and it is seen as a negative influence on society. Through Prohibition Partners, he clarifies, “we have a chance to really catch up on this wonderful plant and really get to understand the benefits cannabis can do for us in society as a medicine, food, ingredient, and material.”
The podcast continues with Stephen discussing the relationship between cannabis and technology. Specifically, he mentions the high demand for the tech around the plant in the B2B marketplace. “There’s already [an] explosive demand for cannabis, and companies and markets are trying to respond as quickly as possible and trying to be successful in tech platforms to facilitate that demand.” He adds that these tech services and platforms are essential, especially for his industry, because they help provide security, transparency, and trust for the people.
We dive deeper into Stephen’s interest in spreading awareness and reliable information on the importance of cannabis. He believes he will have a much “wider impact for generations” by presenting the case for the legalization of cannabis.
As the episode continues to explore Stephen's experience of technology, leadership, and corporate life, we also discover his goals and hope for cannabis in the future.
To find out more about Stephen and his work, check out:* His LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murpho/?originalSubdomain=uk * His Website: https://prohibitionpartners.com/
The conversation kicks off with an article by USA Today that highlights how Gen Z makes up a large proportion of the LGBTQ+ community. Billie explains that this generational shift towards many more people identifying as LGBTQ+ is great for tearing down societal structures and spurring innovation in the finance space; it’s essentially giving Daylight an ever-expanding audience to serve.
“What it really indicates is more and more people in the younger generations are thinking about societal structures and expectations of things like heterosexuality and monogamy, and [they are] discarding them and saying, ‘I don't want to do that,’” she tells us. She adds, “and it's exciting for us, because that means we get to build things with that in mind, like, what does the joint bank account look like when there are three of you in a throuple?”
Our discussion moves to where the inspiration for Daylight stemmed from. “So, my lightbulb moment for Daylight was talking to my co-founder, and essentially getting user-interviewed about my experiences as a trans woman in the US accessing financial services.”
It wasn’t an easy journey for Billie. “I had to not only spend a whole bunch of time and money getting my name updated, legally, but then I had to take that document that essentially says, ‘Hi, I'm a trans person, this is my old name, this is my new name, please don't discriminate against me and give me a card’ to every single financial institution that I banked with.” As a result, Daylight’s mission shaped into helping the LGBTQ+ community navigate these complexities so they can live their best lives.
Billie then tells us about Daylight’s success stories (including how they got to advocate for the trans community’s data protection and privacy at the White House), some interesting innovations the platform has, as well as Billie’s personal journey with tech and the biggest frustration she encountered in the industry. We finish with the lightning round, where we discover her game-changing piece of tech and what she considers to be the evilest application of tech.
To learn more about Daylight, visit the website: https://www.joindaylight.com/
Free From Market is on a mission to assist consumers with affordable, inclusive access to healthy food, as well as critical data and resources to further drive positive health outcomes.
We kick off the conversation by delving into a piece that says many UK households are now skipping meals due to the rising cost of living. Emily acknowledges that food insecurity has always been a challenge, but that “it is at a critical point right now with inflation, particularly with food prices continuing to escalate.” Emily adds, “It’s particularly concerning when access to the right food is critical to wellbeing.”
Responding to the next topic we look at — people opting for junk food because they are struggling to purchase healthier options due to the price difference — Emily emphasizes the importance of policy change in achieving sustainable outcomes. Speaking on this, Emily says, “In the United States, the conditions where certain communities lack access to healthy food were intentional. We have a history of a policy called redlining, which is where banks denied loans to businesses in areas that were traditionally low income or where there was a population of black and brown people.”
Our conversation shifts to the inspiration behind Free From Market and the work the organization is doing. “The work [I do] at Free From Market is deeply personal.” Emily is motivated to bring about systems change and make healthy food accessible at scale as a result of her lived experience with limited access to the right food. Free From Market is creating a new market for consumers who have always wanted access to natural and healthy foods, but have been unable to do so due to a lack of purchasing power, infrastructure, as well as awareness and education.
As the episode continues, we explore what Emily has learned in the policy landscape, the one policy she would change given the opportunity, and the importance of funding founders who have firsthand experience with the problems they are attempting to solve. We conclude with a lightning round in which Emily answers some fun, thought-provoking questions, including the tech product that has been a game changer in her life and her predictions for the tech space.
To find out more about Emily and her work at Free From Market, check out:
- The website: https://freefrommarket.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/freefrommarket/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shop.freefrommarket/
We start off by diving into a piece from The Guardian about AI replicating inequity at scale.
Jessica states that Playbook is directly impacted by AI and it is a rising concern, especially for artists like herself. She says, “You can see [AI-generated art] as somewhat threatening to some of our jobs and livelihood.” Jessica adds, "Technology is definitely very scary, but in a way, it is somewhat inevitable.” So how does Playbook overcome this obstacle?
In response, we dive into a discussion on Playbook’s uniqueness in terms of storage compared to other applications such as Google and Dropbox. Jessica emphasizes that rather than platforms trying to make consumers purchase more cloud storage, “they should be really selling the product itself,” which is exactly what Playbook does. She points out that Playbook is not “a cloud storage business, [but] in a very much new category. [People] will come to realize that we are something very different from Dropbox.”
As the previous Head of Design at Google, we get to learn in-depth about Jessica’s journey from working at large corporate companies to starting her own start-up. “I’m so grateful every day that I have a team of great people working with me all the time.”
As the episode continues to explore Jessica's experience of founding her own start-up, technology, goals, and the future in the tech industry, we also discover her predictions for the Playbook this year.
- To find out more about Jessica and her work, check out:
- Her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kojessica/
- Her Website: https://www.playbook.com/
Sue’s journey began with an obsession with technology, humanity, and sociology, ultimately taking her to her formation of WeAre8.
We first dive into a piece from the BBC about AI swamping social media with fake accounts and mimicking human behavior on social media. Here, Sue underlines that WeAre8 ensures that everyone is validated and verified, so no one can be anonymous. “We are a powerful force taking tiny actions every day, and we have to use AI in the way we want. What worries me at the moment is that social media is taking us to our lowest common denominator as humans every day.”
The next part of the podcast dives into how government controls social media, taking away freedom for users. This, coupled with the prevalent of misinformation, has sown some powerful seeds of distrust and apprehension in the hearts of people. "It all comes back to fake news," Sue observes. "In a world where everything is fake, there has to be a home and a place that we know has got us.” The prevalence of fake news in the world of social has generated a skepticism of information overall—a fact that troubles Sue as much as spurs her into action.
Sue goes on to elaborate on her experience of working in four businesses and what she hopes users will gain from her platform. “I feel deeply that everything has led to this," smiles the entrepreneur, highlighting that through her platform, users will be gaining experiences that are tailored to their preferences and viewed on-demand.
To find out more about Sue and her work, check out:
- Her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-fennessy/
- The website: https://www.weare8.com/
Marie is a self-confessed “super nerd supreme” who started coding at just nine years old. She began her career as an engineer at AOL, then worked at Universal Studios and several tech firms before co-founding Data360 eight years ago.
The first article we discuss is from Forbes. It tackles the intersection between AI and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and asks whether ChatGPT will make DEI communications from leaders inauthentic.
“It’s a matter of fairly sourcing data,” Marie tells us. She explains that sources that are widely regarded as authoritative tend to be biased, so there’s a need to use wider, more inclusive data sets to train AI.
The second article from IBM talks about the need to account for racial bias in machine learning models and the idea that data can carry implicit bias. We asked Marie what she thinks about how to remove racial bias from machine learning models.
“Who do you have on the team?” Marie asks, emphasizing the need for diversity among teams developing and training AI models. She then goes on to talk about how her background in anthropology influences how she thinks about AI, machine learning, and removing bias.
“You need four approaches: qualitative, quantitative, latitudinal, longitudinal,” Marie explains, “What we mostly have now is a quantitative approach, but there isn’t necessarily always a qualitative approach.”
The third piece from Black Girl Nerds asks whether AI can improve Black women’s lives. “AI apps and software have definitely improved the quality of my life,” Marie says. “Our company also works with Black women through our online incubator, and I would say yes, it does improve their lives.”
Marie shares some of the challenges she faces as a Black woman in a leadership role at a tech company before we move on to Data360’s work helping small business owners automate their business operations and increase their data literacy.
Finally, into what Marie thinks the evillest tech app is and her predictions for the future of tech.
To learn more about Data360: https://www.data360.solutions/home
We start by diving into how DeNora founded DoSomething.org after cultivating an interest in societal issues, civic life, inclusivity, and other important topics. This interest directly informed the specific campaigns her company has completed, such as “Make STEM 100%,” which mainly focuses on providing for high school students, especially from underrepresented communities.
“What we know is that only 20 % of high school graduates are prepared for college-level coursework STEM,” DeNora says. “If they’re not getting [the necessary tools for learning], then they’re never going to be prepared.”
DeNora then talks about the significance of working in a non-profit organization.
“What we’re seeing [is] an interest in partnering and learning how to work with the nonprofit sector and support the work happening here,” she explains. “And I think that has a significant impact on the nonprofit sector, which exists to be a bridge between what’s happening in the private sector and what’s happening in government.”’
DeNora adds that she hopes to evolve her company into recognition and be revered in the marketplace for future generations.
Later in the conversation, DeNora also expresses her excitement about the impacts and changes young individuals are making today. She brings up ongoing and future projects that she plans to work on, such as climate change and STEM education.
“It’s really exciting to see young people calling out the problem. [Young people] are the ones pushing us to do better or do more and feel the change that we all want to see happen.”
We head home after stressing the importance of tech and underlining the opportunity that young people can now utilize to connect with others and reach for support in important causes.
As the episode continues to explore her experience of tech, young leadership, and corporate life, we also discover more about DeNora’s thoughts on tech: her dream tech product and her overall purpose with DoSomething.org.
- To learn more about DeNora and her work, check out:
- Her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denora-getachew/
- Their Website: https://www.dosomething.org/us.
Our conversation starts with Kiehl’s background at Riot company and Google before leading into how he decided to launch his own company.
Josiash discusses the importance of achieving and standing out amongst the various companies in the gaming industry, underlining the idea that anyone can now create their own unique product.
“I think this is a trend we’ve seen recently,” he observes. “As tools get better and better, it lowers the barrier to entry of creating anything.”
Kiehl further adds that timeliness is more significant than being polished, because anyone can create their own game with the accessible tools that are available.
“There are more people who would become game developers, which means we would get more perspectives in the industry. It’s not just people who have a programming background; just about anybody can load up some of these tools, the more accessible tools, and build a game.” This is far from a worrying development for Josiah; in fact, he feels hopeful about the industry.
We move on to a conversation on AI in gaming (of course we bring AI into this). Josiash expands on the ethical concerns that come into play with AI and gaming, but highlights the efforts that his team is taking to overcome these obstacles.
We head home with a conversation on the ethics of gaming, including the endless debate on the positives and negatives of online game behavior.. We also chat about his dream Tech product and his vision for the future of gaming and Tech.
The conversation kicks off with an article about ChatGPT and whether it poses a cybersecurity risk. “It is exciting to see how fast this has taken off and how people are adopting an AI tool,” Tiffany says. “But it’s also being adopted by bad actors and cybercriminals. They’re using it to make their emails look real and personalize them at scale,” she tells us. “Others have learned to exploit ChatGPT to create malware, which is code that tries to gain access to data that it shouldn’t have.”
Tiffany explains what polymorphic malware is and why we should be concerned about it — it’s malware that adapts, learns, and changes, making it harder to detect.
We discuss spear phishing — the process of sending hyper-personalized phishing emails that ChatGPT is facilitating — before moving on to the next article about the “zero trust” approach to cybersecurity. Tiffany explains that the real problem is not stopping phishing messages from coming in but stopping people from clicking on the links cybercriminals send.
“We have to shift people away from always wanting to be helpful,” she says. “And the other thing we have to do is recognize that cybercriminals are going to try to exploit our needs. It’s all about not trusting the message or phone call that comes in.”
The final piece focuses on cybersecurity predictions for 2023. Tiffany explains that small and medium-sized businesses tend to be easier targets for cybercriminals as they usually have fewer security policies in place. We discuss tensions that this may cause between companies and their employees and the potential for state-sponsored cyber attacks.
Tiffany then tells us more about the inspiration that led her to found HacWare and the work they do before we move into the lightning round to discover what she thinks is the evillest Tech application and what her predictions are for the future of Tech.
- To learn more about HacWare: https://hacware.com
Winvesta is a cross-border neobank that provides a wide variety of products to developing markets, including global banking accounts, investment portfolios, and payment collections. The company was born out of Swastik’s desire to develop a product suite that would give investors in developing markets access to financial services in developed markets.
India is the largest user base for some of the tech companies in the world, including Facebook. However, people were not able to invest in these companies; Swastik wanted to fix this.
We begin this episode by discussing this piece on the future of digital payments. “The promise of blockchain, which is a longer-term promise, remains, helping to drive trust and speed without necessarily being a currency itself,” Swastik points out. “Blockchain will continue aiding payments in various ways without necessarily aiding just the flow of crypto.”
Throughout all this talk about bitcoin and payments, Swastik is particularly interested in how businesses will continue to foster trust in an industry such as fintech, where people will only use your products if they trust you.
Getting into the next piece on what’s hot and what’s not in the fintech space, Swastik continues to emphasize the need for trust, especially given that we’re in a recessionary period. He points out that people are becoming far more conservative with their money, and as this happens, they are becoming “less trusting of people they don’t know,” giving rise to the need for mitigating fraud and increasing trust in the system.
We delve into how the fintech ecosystem can benefit from transplanting use cases from emerging markets and how Winvesta has managed to increase speed, control, and transparency for both its retail and business customers. Our conversation also covers some predictions for the fintech space in 2023 and a new Tech product Swastik plans to build to automate task prioritization, complete with some self-adjustment capabilities.
- To find out more about Winvesta: https://www.winvesta.in/
- Check out Winvesta Crisps for daily financial market news in a bite-sized format: https://www.winvesta.in/crisps/
Kieron is a jack of all trades with his interests in marketing and love of poetry so he built a creative consultancy on the power of words. His obsession with language and etymology drives him to inspire clients to build bridges with words.
As a Performance Poet, Kieron shares his perspective on a piece questioning AIs ability to write Authentic Poetry and how “what it lacks is human experience to pick up the nuances” and “lacks the creative flair and creative soul.“
We discuss a piece on ChatGPT, the new AI tool marketers are going crazy about. where Kieron points out “it could help those that are neurodiverse or those who may struggle with language barriers and it could give them a better steer.”
Kieron thrills us with a live poetry performance with one of his own poems. Here’s a preview: “In blue flashing lights, I testify. I don't cry. I just write. Poetry provides comfort during troubling times.”
No AI tool has brought us those goosebumps yet; take our word for it.
We continue to dive into the many inspiring projects Kieron has been part of as well as his current endeavour as Creative in Residence of the English National Opera. We also discover his dream Tech product, his least favourite use of Tech (hint: grocery stores), and finally, his big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year.
To follow Kieron's amazing work: https://www.kieronrennie.com
This week, we welcome Amy Carter-James and Ben Keene, Co-founders of Raaise, who share their mission to empower climate startups to create a better future for our planet.
Raaise is a SaaS platform powering bold, game-changing climate startups to prepare for and execute a funding round with as little friction as possible so they can create climate solutions for a better, greener future.
We start the episode with a piece from Verge on COP27. "It brings the world together around this conversation of how we solve the problem of climate change," Ben optimistically admits, "but from a marketplace perspective of scaling bold, bright ideas, it feels like we can't rely on COP and the Governments of the world."
Raaise was born from the devastation of one of the worst climate disasters to hit the southern hemisphere. It destroyed Ben and Amy's home, along with hundreds of others in Mozambique. They were forced to take action and started their journey by finding mission-driven founders with powerful ideas and helping them scale.
As we dive into our next piece by PR Week on ESG in businesses, Amy is quick to point out that "it's ridiculous that it's 2022, and ESG isn't hard coded into every corporation around the world It’s frustrating that people even consider cutting ESG when we are living in this climate era."
Our conversation continues to explore how Ben and Amy showcase and support these amazing startups. We also find out what they think is the evilest application of Tech and big predictions about the Tech for Good space this year and beyond.
- To find out more about Raaise: https://www.raaise.co/
- Check out Rebel Book Club, created by Ben to help people to accelerate and mix up their reading habits and to connect with different people: https://www.rebelbook.club/
- Check out Nema Foundation, created by Amy to support displaced students, women and children in Nr Mozambique fleeing the war in Cabo Delgado: https://www.instagram.com/nemafoundation/?hl=en
This week, we welcome Christian Hendriksen, Co-Founder and CEO at Rensair, who walks us through his pursuit to protect and enhance lives through proven clean air technology.
Christian is passionate about clean air as a human right. He creates new technologies with Rensair that help people around the world reduce their exposure to air pollution and tackle airborne diseases.
"There is a direct correlation, undoubtedly, between particulate matter levels in the air and your ability to concentrate," Christian explains, as we explore a piece on the importance of air purification.
We segue into the next piece by Vox that describes the concept of sick building syndrome and describes how the ventilation of our buildings causes illnesses. Christian emphasises that indoor ventilation "needs to be addressed, and we need to foster new building principles."
In the context of the Coronavirus pandemic, air purification has never been more important. Christian points out how "we focus on outdoor air quality so much but considering we spend the vast majority of our lives indoors, that's the area we need to focus on now."
Our discussion continues to explore Christian's mission to provide clean air for every space: from hospitals and schools to restaurants and retail outlets. We also discovered his dream Tech product and big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year.
- To find out more about Rensair: https://rensair.co.uk/
- Check out Rensair’s reports: https://rensair.co.uk/certifications/
- To find out how effective Rensair is: https://docsend.com/view/pgu8n4izaihia45f
In this week's episode, we welcome Reva McPollom, Founder & CEO of Lessonbee who shares her mission to transform K-12 health education and social emotional learning.
Reva’s innovation at Lessonbee provides culturally relevant health education that promotes mental and emotional well-being that serves as a catalyst to a healthier world for everyone.
"One of the issues historically with the SEL curriculum is that it doesn't include or represent the multi-dimensionality of diverse learners," Reva highlights as we explore a piece by Edweek on the difficulty to weave social emotional learning into academics.
We move on a piece by Edsurge that talks of demystifying social emotional learning. “SEL points to broader societal context and where we are as a society in our relationship with the truth,” Reva adds thoughtfully.
As someone who has navigated the US educational system in multiple ways, Reva describes it as a “system that has always just celebrated assimilation and performance, but hasn’t validated and affirmed my culture, my identity, my wants, my needs, and my struggles.”
Our conversation progresses into more insights into how Lessonbee is empowering and activating the innate power of kids and teens. We also discover Reva’s dream Tech product and big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year.
- To find out more about Lessonbee: https://lessonbee.com/
- To check out the Health Education Heroes Registration Form: https://promo.lessonbee.com/heroes
- Go check out the Health Education Heroes Donation Hub: https://givebutter.com/lessonbee
What better month to talk about the future? This week, we welcome Rohit Talwar, Founder and CEO of Fast Future, to discuss his passion: harnessing new ideas and driving innovation to future-proof society.
Rohit's work at Fast Future specialises in the fields of future and foresight, delivering critical insights to help clients navigate disruption and understand the emerging landscape, so they can shape a better tomorrow.
"We're seeing in all sorts of fields of science that AI is far outstripping our ability to do anything with it,” Rohit observes, as we dive into a piece from Nature on how AI and robotics help us expand our predictive capacities.
We move on to a piece by Bloomberg on the lack of transparency in algorithms affecting AI, and Rohit points out that "we have to push back on all capitalist thinking at the moment if we want true transparency and true participation in society."
Keen to gain his perspective on the constant and staggering advancement of Tech, we ask Rohit about a piece describing the opportunities this 'Exponential Age' has to create real change. Why haven’t we fully realized the potential of current Tech? "The reason has nothing to do with the Tech; it has to do with choices we've made as a society,” Rohit responds.
The conversation finally moves into a more human space, as we learn about Rohit's interest in creating a human future by putting people at the centre of his agenda. We also find out the evilest application of Tech he's seen and his big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year and beyond.
- To find out more about Fast Future: www.fastfuture.com
- To get in touch with Rohit: rohit@fastfuture.com
- To stay up to date with Rohit's great work:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohit-talwar-futurist-keynote-speaker/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/fastfuture
In this week's episode, we're joined by Cynthia Fortlage, Founder of CAF Services, who lets us in on her insight into creating safe spaces where all marginalised people experience a sense of belonging.
We start off by diving into a piece on emphasising and empowering the T in LGBTQ for transgender people in tech. Cynthia points out, "when we talk about trans, it's imperative to understand for organisations that those are three very different identities." What are those three identities? We discuss them in the episode.
The next piece by Rolling Stone lets us unpack the now-popular phrase 'women in Tech. Cynthia astutely remarks, "when we talk about women in Tech, why do we want to use language that is exclusion based rather than inclusion based?"
As an award-winning gender consultant, we get to learn Cynthia’s valuable insights into the ever-present disparity in the Tech workforce. Only "23% of the leadership are female-identifying within these Tech companies", she points out, as we dive into a piece on the 'mass exodus' of women at work during the pandemic.
Cynthia's philosophy at CAF services is "acceptance without understanding." Through this unique view, she strives to help organisations at the intersection of human rights, sexuality, gender, and privilege to create intentional cultures where people feel they belong.
As the episode continues to explore Cynthia's experience of gender, leadership, and corporate life, we also discover her dream tech product and big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year.
To find out more about Cynthia and her work, check out her LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/cfortlage, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cafservices/ and Website: Https://www.cynthiafortlage.com
This week, we welcome Robin Eriksson, CEO, and Co-founder of Cogo, who shares his passion for using technology and innovation to create sustainable change.
With his strong belief that creating sustainable cities is one of the most important issues we need to address, Robin co-founded Cogo, a platform that gathers shared rides for frictionless mobility and a better tomorrow.
We start the episode with Robin's perspective on a piece by Bloomberg on how it's time to treat e-bikes like vehicles, where he mentions how "If we look at on the environmental aspects, I think it's 1/5 of all emissions globally, every year comes from transport" so "biking is the most eco-friendly option out there."
"It's not top of mind yet; we've had cars for hundreds of years, and we've had buses and other vehicles for so long," he describes, "This is so new, and that takes time," Robin points out as we discuss a piece by The Atlantic about how e-bikes are still a scary unknown to the public.
The Guardian's piece on moving things forward with building infrastructure for bikes introduced an interesting point from Robin on how "it all comes down to safety" and "if people on the bike feel safe, as it can be scary to be next to cars.”
While continuing to discover more about how Robin strives to achieve a more sustainable society, we also learn about his dream tech product and his big prediction about the tech for good space this year and beyond.
- To find out more about Cogo: www.cogoapp.io
- Cogo’s iOS app: https://apps.apple.com/dk/app/cogo-scooters-bikes-cars/id1512778674
- Cogo’s Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.app.cogo
- Cogo’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cogomobility
This week, we’re joined by Piotr Pisarz, Founder and CEO at Uncapped, who lets us in on his mission to empower founders who are changing the world.
As the economic downturn looms over us, we dive into one of Sifted pieces on what the recession means for European VC and how the trouble they might be facing is "mainly driven by a significant reduction in runway". "If you're a founder,” Piotr says, “you should really prepare to have a runway at least for the next 12 months."
We dive into the next piece on the common 'half-truths’ spoken in the startup ecosystem, such as exaggerating annual revenue. Piotr points out that "your job as a founder is to market your company and to position it in the best light possible, to appear bigger than you are and to scare off the competitors."
"I realised saying no is much more important than saying yes," Piotr admits as he shares his biggest takeaways as a founder/entrepreneur. “It's interesting because you want to help others, but it's very difficult to find time in a scalable way and you have to take care of yourself."
Piotr’s work at Uncapped is funding the next generation of entrepreneurs, driven by the resolve that they shouldn’t have to give away ownership of their company to support growth. Uncapped provide no-security and no-equity investments from £100k - £10 million.
The episode continues to explore Uncapped, a company born out of Piotr’s frustration with the less-than-ideal funding options currently available to entrepreneurs. We also find out his dream tech product and Uncapped’s big prediction for the Tech-for-good space this year.
- To find out more Piotr’s work at Uncapped: http://bit.ly/3X9JTl6
In Today’s episode, we welcome Alan Grau, VP of Sales & Business Development at PQShield who shares his expertise on post quantum cryptography.
We start the episode with a deep dive into ‘What Is the Future of Quantum-Proof Encryption?’. “Somewhere around the end of this decade,” Alan predicts, “quantum computers will be able to break RSA and ECC encryption.”
We then introduce a piece on the road to quantum-enabled cybersecurity and what it looks like. Alan points out that quantum cryptography is not a magic solution to security. “Security concerns that existed before will still exist in a post quantum world.”
We were keen to discuss how to achieve secure messaging in a post quantum world, Alan describing how its about “implementing the new post quantum encryption algorithms in a way that's provably secure”
PQSheild deliver end-to-end solution design that is provably secure, crypto-agile and efficient while bridging the gaps between academic theory and commercial practice, between openness and security.
A big part of Alan's role at PQ shield is helping guide users and this industry through the confusion of the post-quantum cryptography security and helping to navigate the post-quantum world.
- Check out PQSheilds guide to the Quantum Threat and their acclaimed white paper series: https://pqshield.com/quantum-threat/
- To find out more about their involvement in all 4 of the PQC algorithms: https://content.pqshield.com/nist-video-series
- A recent white paper regarding upgrading the Signal protocol to PQC: https://content.pqshield.com/secure-messaging-in-a-post-quantum-world
This week, Kat Hamilton, Director of Partnerships and Programmes at Force of Nature, talks about their powerful mission of empowering young people to create real change and its vital part in the future of our climate.
We start by delving into an insightful piece on 'young people and eco-anxiety’. Kat points out that "eco-anxiety is an amassing of feelings across people of all generations, and we focus on young people because that's where our lived experience is."
They go on to share their perspective on climate anxiety disorder and its link to eco-anxiety. For both phenomena, they say we need to "allow ourselves to experience the depth of our feelings and see them as a pivotal part of resilience…so that we can step up rather than shut down."
We talk about integrating climate solutions into the learning process in schools and universities. A piece on putting climate solutions at the heart of tech education and beyond illustrates Kat’s insightful perspective: "the model of education that allows students to problem solve and critically think is the most important model of education we can have."
Kat's work at Force of Nature embodies a belief in humanity and human emotions as catalysts for change, while mobilising mindsets for climate action and skillfully harnessing eco-anxiety with the right mix of community support and empowering stories.
As we continue to explore Kat's role in helping shape the next generation of climate activists, we also find out their dream tech product and their big prediction for the Tech for Good space this year.
- To follow Force of Nature on their climate change journey, here are their social channels: https://www.instagram.com/forceofnature.xyz/, https://twitter.com/fon_xyz and https://www.linkedin.com/company/forceofnature/
- To stay up to date with Kat: https://twitter.com/itskathamilton, https://www.linkedin.com/in/itskathleenhamilton and https://www.instagram.com/itskathamilton/
In this week's episode, we're joined by Alexandre Crépault, Sales & Operations Lead at Climate X, who lets us in on how he's helping to build a better future for our planet.
We start the episode off with a piece on 'How Clean and Climate Tech Became a Good Investment,' where he describes how the current global challenges are impacting the markets, changing the priorities of investors and banks broadly.
Alexandre points out how "the structure of climate tech differs a lot from traditional tech investing" as we dive into this next piece on where climate tech meets global venture capital.
"The simplest way to answer it is that AI alone is definitely not going to solve the climate crisis, and it shouldn't," Alexandre explains as we discuss how AI can fight climate change and its limitations.
Climate X is helping organisations become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, unlocking the power of climate data to assess the probability and severity of weather events decades before they even happen.
The conversation leads us to find out what Alexandre believes to be the evilest application of tech and his big prediction for the tech for good space this year and beyond.
- To find out more about Climate X: https://www.climate-x.com/
- To stay up to date with Alexandre: https://www.linkedin.com/in/acrepault/
This week, we welcome Mandana Ahmadi, Co-Founder and CEO at Alena, to discuss her forward-thinking approach with mental health, using Tech to help people be their best selves.
"Personalisation is key. At the end of the day, what matters is what's happening to me, my body, my brain, my life; therefore, it has to be specific to me," Mandana explains as we discuss a piece on Tech in mental health and its future.
We move on to another piece by Wired that examines the problem with mental health bots. In Mandana’s words, “too much credit is given to these bots, and they do more damage than good."
As someone who is radically changing the way we approach and understand mental health, Mandana also gives us her valuable insights on this piece: therapy for people who won't go to therapy. That ties in with what Alena does—enable you to become your own therapist.
Alena combines evidence-based therapy with cutting-edge neuroscience to overcome the limitations of mainstream therapy, delivering tailored mental health solutions. It empowers the people who use it to heal from past experiences that hold them back, and regain emotional freedom.
We go on to reveal what one problem Mandana thinks Tech can't solve, and what her dream Tech product would be.
- To find out more about the team behind Alena: https://alena.com/our-team
- To help Mandana test Alena: https://alena.com/become-a-beta-tester
In this week's episode, we welcome Danielle Clarke, Brand Designer & Marketing Consultant at Danielle Clarke Creative, where she shares her love of using design for good as well as helping businesses build stellar brands.
In this episode, we switch it up and welcome our Creative Director Anabelle Pang and Senior Designer Oliva Messer to get a well-rounded perspective on the future of design.
We start the episode by exploring a piece from Forbes on the wild new world of text-to-image AI where Danielle emphasises how "it's changing design and changing the landscape."
"I'd like to see brands show up in the world in the way that I'd envisioned them," Danielle mentions as we question this next piece on whether offering clients "creative freedom" by sharing proprietary design software disempowers designers.
As a lecturer at Birmingham City University, Danielle is helping to shape and influence the next generation of designers and creative thinkers.
Danielle's agency grew from her frustration of not having control over her own career and being pigeonholed as a woman of colour, so she built her agency with a mission to help people build better brands to create happier, healthier lives for themselves and the people around them.
- To find out more about Danielle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-creative-brand-designer-marketing-consultant/
- To find our more about Danielle’s work at Danielle Clarke Creative: https://danielleclarkecreative.com/
- Check out Danielle’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/build-better-brands/id1598121972
In this week's episode, we welcome Imriel Morgan, CEO and founder of Content is Queen, who shares her passionate perspective on the up-and-coming podcast scene.
We start the episode by delving into a piece by Wired on how tech industry layoffs will potentially undo workforce diversity gains, where Imriel describes how "the diversity element of the workforce tends to come much later for a lot of big organisations and companies; it's an afterthought."
As an expert in the podcast industry, Imriel gives her insight on corporate takeovers which are changing podcasting and mentions how "It goes against what podcasting started out to be, which was a place where we can tell our stories and on our own terms and create our own niches."
Content is Queen is a podcast agency created to represent "an inclusive and safe space for people to create" and built around Imriel's founding principle that inclusion is a process rather than an outcome and your participation is essential.
Imriel shares how she produced the UK's first and only women's podcast festival that unites the global community of female innovators and leaders in podcasting, providing an inclusive and inviting space for women to connect and build long-lasting communities.
Our conversation leads us to find out more about how Imriel has revolutionised the podcast industry, her prediction for the tech for good space, and what she thinks is the evilest application of tech.
- To learn more about Content is Queen: https://contentisqueen.org/
- Check out Content is Queen’s Micro-Grant for Podcasters Programme here: https://contentisqueen.org/micro-grants-for-podcasters-2022
- A free podcast marketing course by Content is Queen: https://contentisqueen.org/free_resources/masterclass-podcast-marketing-with-imriel-morgan/
In this week's episode, we're joined by Trenton Moss, founder and lead coach of Team Sterka and the author of the bestselling book Human Powered, where he shares his focus on supercharging digital product teams with emotional intelligence.
Trenton describes how embedding emotional intelligence into your teams will "increase everyone's well-being, it will improve individual performance, it will improve team performance, and it will improve business outcomes."
His work at Team Sterka helps transform how people work in teams, alleviates toxic work environments rife with grievances and petty disputes, and builds healthy mindsets that foster productive company cultures.
We discuss the challenges of building a culture of emotional intelligence within teams, such as "people in positions of leadership struggling to move towards a more kind of empowering leadership style."
As a leadership coach, Trenton understands the detrimental effect a leader's stubborn and outdated attitude can have on their employees and, in turn, their company. He mentions that 85% of job success comes from people skills, an essential skill set for a company to thrive.
Listen on to find out Trenton's big prediction for the tech for good space and what he thinks is the evilest application of tech.
- To learn more about Team Sterka: https://sterka.team/
- Check out Trenton’s book Human Powered: https://humanpoweredbook.com
In this week's episode, we welcome Arjay Ruggles, CEO of HomeRoom, who lets us in on their strong belief in community as a driver for growth and its crucial role in the future of business.
We start off with a deep dive into one of HubSpot's pieces on community-led growth, where Arjay mentions how companies are quick to make the mistake of dismissing community in B2B SaaS. In reality, "people want to understand the product, they want to use it right, and they want to do it in the right ways."
With the economic crisis continuing to aggravate, Arjay describes why "educating people on your product" is key to creating a recession-proof SaaS business. Once that step is integrated into your work processes, no matter how badly a rescission hits, your product is too valuable to let go.
We dive into another piece on how the tech sector needs to stop breaking things and be more responsible, and Arjay emphasizes that "it's possible to build and to create things without tearing apart these frameworks that allow us to be sustainable."
Arjay's philosophy at HomeRoom is a human-centric approach to software. They've replaced the term “user” with the word “person” to reinforce that it's an individual with real thoughts and opinions interacting with the product—not a robot.
The episode continues to explore Arjay's work at HomeRoom, a community tech solutions company focused on creating services and products for community-led organisations. We also find out what their dream tech product is and their big prediction for the tech for good space this year.
- To learn more about HomeRoom: https://homeroom.club
- To stay up to speed with Arjay:
- https://tiktok.com/@lifewitharjay
- https://twitter.com/lifewitharjay
On this week's episode, Richard Packman, Managing Director at GoodPAYE, shares his perspective on adapting and changing the way technology is used so that it's an enabler and a force for good.
"I think to really create significant change, you've got to change behaviour," he explains, as we discuss how to bring about change using tech for good, "and to change behaviour, you've got to adjust the way marketing is done traditionally."
GoodPAYE is a 100% charity-owned tech-for-good business working to revolutionise payroll. Richards's work uses tech to create an impact with their newly developed technology, enabling millions of employees to change the world while they work.
We chat about the latest charity trends on digital, where Richard believes that digital fundraising is the way forward. He brings up an interesting outlook on how charities need to look at fundraising as a two-way relationship, sharing the impact of their change with their audience.
As an entrepreneur and startup founder, Richard understands how the process is not as glamorous as it seems. But what has driven him as an entrepreneur is his superpower to "spot an opportunity that needs to be fixed or that can be realized in a better way."
Our conversation leads us to discover Richard's big prediction about the tech-for-good space this year and what he thinks is one problem tech can't solve.
To find out more about how GoodPAYE is reinventing the payroll system: * www.GoodPAYE.com * www.linkedin.com/company/goodpaye/ * twitter.com/WeAreGoodPAYE
In this week's episode, we welcome Daniel Bakh, Co-Founder & CEO at Fullview, and learn about his passion to help humanizse SaaS companies so they can deliver amazing customer experiences.
Daniel understands how frustrating it is to wrap one’s head around customer issues. So he built Fullview, a platform that supercharges the process of recognizing customers' problems, boosting productivity and enabling a smooth experience for the end user.
At Fullview, Daniel’s mission is to ensure every modern SaaS company can easily deliver stronger technical support at scale. Personalization is key in creating a successful customer experience, and few people can tell you this better than Daniel.
“Everyone knows that entrepreneurship is kind of a rollercoaster ride,” he explains. ” I quickly realised that, despite all the highs, there's also plenty of lows.”
We go on to discuss the success of Fullview and the problems he and his team overcame.
We hit some interesting common ground as the conversation steers into co-founder territory. Finding a balance with your co-founder, Daniel states, can be “almost like a marriage; you have to be supportive partners of one another in a business context.”
Further down the episode, we find out how Daniel’s work has contributed to the Tech for Good space. We also discover what’s been a game-changing tech product in his life.
- To find out more about Fullview: https://www.fullview.io/solutions/customer-support
- Fullview’s latest product release: https://www.fullview.io/products/replays
In this week's episode, Yasmin Georgiou, Strategy Lead at William Joseph, discusses her passionate outlook on a people-centred approach to strategy development, bringing different perspectives together on a journey to create effective, long-term change.
"I'm really driven by social purpose," she emphasizes, "that's, I suppose, the continuous thread through my career today; I suppose that's what I really believe, that people should be able to bring their whole selves to work, and I try to do that," Yasmin explains.
As someone driven by charity and social change, Yasmin has navigated working in both the marketing and charity industry through her understanding that marketing and fundraising are similar but not the same, whereas others use them interchangeably.
We discuss how going into recession, charities and nonprofits need to adapt to how they work and their "prioritization needs to become much more streamlined and logical in the decisions they make."
Yasmin raises issues in the charity sector that are often overlooked, such as the need for developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence skills within a team. Charities focus their time on building technical skills instead.
Being a woman of color navigating both these industries, Yasmin feels passionate about the ethnicity and gender pay gap that we need to start tackling and start having conversations on how organizations need to do better and be better in welcoming women and people of color into the workforce.
As our conversation progresses, we learn one problem Yasmin thinks tech can’t solve and her big prediction about the tech-for-good space this year and beyond.
In this week's episode, we welcome Ellie Hale, Producer at Catalyst, and discuss the potential of tech in re-inventing lives, systems, and perspectives.
Catalyst is a collective of digital agencies, funders, and charities who believe in the
strength of good design and data to transform civil society, driving a systemic and societal change.
"Historically, tech platforms haven't been driven by social principles," Ellie explains. "They've been driven by profit, and that can often lead to very extractive practices and disempowering users.”
This leads neatly into a discussion on the need for a "good tech approach" to tech for good.
Ellie's work involves bringing the social sector to a place where it can contribute and drive the conversation, creating opportunities to help define new forms of technology that are innovative by design.
Her passion is also fueled by the way charities and social organisations "focus on prioritising and optimising good, however they each define that." Ellie believes tech can be an incredible force and power to achieve change provided it is designed well.
As we head home with our conversation, we find out what she thinks is the evilest application of tech, and get a glimpse into her dream tech product.
To learn more about Catalyst: https://www.thecatalyst.org.uk/
To check out Just-Tech, a platform Ellie mentioned with an interesting lens on tech for good: https://www.ssrc.org/programs/just-tech/
An example of Catalysts great work: https://housingdigital.co.uk/hyde-group-launches-universal-credit-support-tool/amp/
In this week's episode, we talk to Jack Mardack, Co-Founder of Oyster, about the most exciting new chapter in the world of work and the crucial role he plays in building bridges between companies and the world's top talent.
There has been "a legacy of imbalance of power as a basic construct of employment for a very long time," Jack explains. "That tone needs to be ripped out and replaced by something that is infinitely more human, infinitely more transparent."
Oyster is an HR platform for globally distributed companies, helping companies hire, pay, and take care of their employees anywhere from the world. The company is redefining the term HR, choosing to call it "The Workplace Team."
Jack's work at Oyster is motivated by a vision of the world in which no talent is wasted because of location—reimagining the centuries-old HR structure to create an equal world of work. To him, it's important to “give visibility to a standard of employment that should be equally available to people around the world."
Amidst an economic downturn, we discuss how HR can help companies navigate turbulent waters and build that trust between employers and employees. A crucial part of that process involves HR employees rising to the challenge of remote work and becoming a force for human centricity within the company.
As we enter the lightning round, we find out what Jack thinks is the evilest application of tech and how he balances profit and purpose within his career.
To find out more about jack and follow him on his journey in transforming the HR industry, follow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mardack/ and https://twitter.com/2hp
In this week's episode, we're joined by Co-Founder and President of MapLight, Daniel Newman, who lets us in on his innovative use of tech to foster a just society, economy, and environment for everyone.
"if you believe in your importance, and it doesn't mean you have to be special in some way or different from other people," Daniel expresses, "but if you care about the world and want to improve it, then you will make a difference."
As a national expert on finance and politics, Daniel believes everyone deserves an equal voice in our democracy. This is exemplified through his efforts to reduce the influence of special interests on government and protect the sacred institutions of democracy.
MapLight designs, builds, and operates software and data systems to improve democracy and advance policies in the public interest. Their groundbreaking work serves governments, nonprofits, and other organisations seeking transparency, accountability, and positive social impacts.
Before his influential role in MapLight, Daniel was an entrepreneur and political organiser. He founded Say I Can, a speech recognition firm, and wrote three books on speech recognition software, drawing from his personal experience to create a masterful work of literature.
Our discussion covers Daniel's dream tech product, the problem it would solve, and his prediction for the future for tech for democracy.
To read Daniels book, 'Unrig: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy': https://www.unrigbook.com/
For our listeners in California: https://votersedge.org/ca
In this week's episode, we talk to Ana Heloísa Moreno, Founder of Altruistic Capital, about her empathetic and human-centred approach to venture capital.
"Social justice is something that we're all born with the capacity to understand," she explains, supporting the presence of social justice in human nature. We all have the ability "to recognize a situation that isn't fair or just.”
Ana Heloísa's work at Altruistic Capital focuses on the potential of impact-driven social businesses to address social and environmental issues while her organisation supports those businesses with access capital, capacity, and connections.
As a former social worker, Ana takes a holistic approach to venture capital by striving to understand the root causes and social determinants of key issues being addressed by Altruistic Capital’s portfolio companies.
Ana is fundamentally motivated by inclusiveness and justice, reflected in her previous work addressing areas such as unemployment, poverty, and violence while employed within Brazil's Ministry of Social Affairs.
Her hope for people's willingness to improve the world has fueled her passionate view that the community is the leading actor in finding solutions for its own problems.
To find out more about Ana Heloísa's work on shifting the way business work: https://www.altruistic.capital/
In this week's episode, we speak with Zoe Philpott—Co-Founder of 2zero3zero and creator of Ada.Ada.Ada—who speaks on storytelling, creative innovation, and gender equality in tech.
Zoe is an award-winning experiential storyteller who breathes never-been-done-before ideas into existence. Her penchant for turning complex thoughts into moving experiences has made robots dance for Ford Motor Cars, illuminated 56 interactive Christmas trees outside the White House with Google, and re-imagined the story of Darwin with the Natural History Museum.
"In stories and script writing, it's all about the subtext, the subconscious, the triggering emotional responses," she explains. "It’s about the emotional chemistry that we can ignite and play with when we're telling stories.”
We spend some time discussing the importance of human emotions in selling in the Digital era.
Zoe’s work with 2zero3zero is helping clients make shifts in their culture and adapt to a sustainable future. Zoe shares that she is “always gravitating towards areas that mean we can have a positive impact.” Her agency also uses social gaming to run Gangland Karma, an interactive game that challenges gang recruitment, influencing young people away from violence and crime.
As a woman in STEM, Zoe understands the importance of recognising the frankly underappreciated talent that women bring to the tech industry. She captures this crucial point with Ada.Ada.Ada—a storytelling initiative inspired by the world's first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, who was written out of history because she was a woman.
To find out more about Zoe's brilliant initiative, check out adatheshow.com and watch the YouTube trailer here: https://youtu.be/BjLCQ91vU20
In this week's episode, Olivia DeRamus, award-winning founder and CEO of Communia, shares her mission of re-imagining tech in its best possible form to connect, inform, and uplift women and marginalised genders.
Olivia describes her goal as an attempt to "revolutionise and rethink how women connect with others and themselves" and talks about how tech can "improve women's lives in a way that has never been done before."
Olivia has faced the challenges women face online and in real life first-hand. Based on those experiences, she designed Communia, a globally-facing social networking app and self-development platform for women—a shining example of next-generation tech built on the female gaze. She works to prioritise social safety within her company and challenges the tech industry as a whole, reminding it of its responsibility to ensure that the digital ecosystem offers everyone equal opportunity to succeed.
Her efforts at addressing the fundamental obstacles women face in all aspects of their lives (particularly the digital sphere) have transformed how women use technology to communicate. The entrepreneur is determined to empower women through an uplifting safe space, away from the male eye.
With a background in the nonprofit industry, Olivia hopes that private companies realise their undeniable role in catalysing positive social change, mainly through innovation at scale. Communia, she explains, represents both a technical innovation and a company that understands its broader social mission.
As the conversation goes on, Olivia talks about her predictions for tech designed for women's safety and what she considers a game-changing tech product.
Find Communia on both App Store and Google Play:
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/communia/id1563440340
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.restlessnetwork&hl=en_US≷=US
Website: https://ourcommunia.com/
In this week's episode, we speak to Jonny Burch, Founder of Progression, about his goal to help teams around the world define the skills needed for their staff to grow.
"If you're passionate about something, you'll be better at it," Jonny explains. "If you're not fundamentally excited by your day-to-day work, then it's going to be a miserable 8 hours."
He describes the relationship between passion and career using Japanese concept ikigai, meaning your "reason for being", and more practically, "that balance of what you love vs. what brings value to the world."
Having worked in, built, and managed design teams for years, Jonny knows how much havoc badly made spreadsheets can wreak within a team. So he has created frameworks to alleviate miscommunication and disharmony and, instead, keep teams aligned and successfully in progress.
We also spend some time talking about Jonny and his team's favourite tech feature, 'wins', a tool that refines company culture by allowing employees to congratulate their colleagues on small or big achievements.
Further down, we discuss the important role of mentorship in career progression: how having an experienced mentor to guide you is a crucial part of your professional development. A true mentor is someone who "really gets to know you and invests in you," highlights Jonny.
As the podcast heads home, we find out Jonny's dream tech product and what he thinks is the evilest application of tech in the world.
To get to know more about Jonny: twitter.com/jonnyburch and jonnyburch.com
To learn more about Jonny's work at Progression: progression.co
In this week's episode, Paul Finnis, CEO of the Learning Foundation and Digital Poverty Alliance, lets us in on his inspiring work, helping children achieve their full potential through the effective use of technology, with an ultimate goal to end digital poverty by 2030.
"We kept finding enormous numbers of young people who were not connected at home at all or have limited connectivity," he explains. "Digital should fit into people's lives, particularly the most disadvantaged, and not be an additional burden."
Paul gives us further insight into the real-life impact of digital poverty, causing many children and young people to remain at school without having their ambitions and their potential fully realised.
We discuss how with each new development in technology, more people are left behind, worsening the existing inequities around race, gender, age, ability, and income.
Further conversation leads us into the role of the pandemic in intensifying the UK's digital divide; now, only 51% of households earning between £6,000-10,000 have home internet access compared with 99% of households with an income of over £40,001. The link between poverty and digital exclusion is obvious. In this context, Paul emphasises that providing access to a device alone cannot end digital exclusion.
As the podcast heads home, we learn a bit about Paul himself — the one tech product that has been a game-changer for him, and his idea of one problem tech can't solve (and why).
To learn more about Paul's work at the Learning foundation and Digital Poverty Alliance, visit: https://learningfoundation.org.uk and https://digitalpovertyalliance.org
In this week's episode, we talk to Aerica Shimizu Banks, Founder of Shisho, about her journey in building an intersectional equity approach in tech and policy.
Aerica employs a holistic and data-driven approach to her work with Shisho, shaped by her own experiences with environmental justice, policy, and tech. Her triple bottom line is "people, planet, profit."
"Racism, civil rights and the environment and the issues we face in the environment are inextricably linked," the intersectional equity consultant explains, "and there's no way to work on environmental issues without addressing race."
As a black Asian woman who has had to endure racism and sexism throughout her career, the Forbes 30-under-30 social entrepreneur now offers strategic advice and support to empower other women of color who are battling the same journey.
Our discussion leads into sensitive topics around data privacy—particularly our ability to maintain everyday life as a hyper-surveillant nexus of governments and corporate entities encroaches upon our rights. There's a certain level of joy and convenience technology offers, but it often makes us pay for it with our boundaries.
Having worked in many sectors that address equity, it's deeply important to Aerica that Shisho continues to build new systems and frameworks to foreground and restore equity into our institutions.
We also dig deeper into Aerica's tech stack and her big prediction about the tech-for-good space this year and beyond.
To get to know more about Erica: @Erikashimizu.
For more information about her work at Shisho: shiso.biz.
"Founders are facing problems that are not just hurdles — but ‘stop all work in progress,’" explains Charlotte Clark, co-founder at Base Ventures. “What is a deal breaker in your startup journey, versus something you just have to figure out how to manoeuvre around?" That question is at the heart of what Base Ventures offers the startup world. Having experienced what it’s like to be lost in the startup ecosystem, Charlotte empathises with founders who face challenges around defining their professional journeys. That’s why Base Ventures has created a tool called Foresight, which helps startup founders articulate their entire process from creating the product to launching and connecting with investors. In line with her goal of developing a more sustainable startup ecosystem, Charlotte is also launching a boot camp to educate founders on inculcating a product-focused thought process particularly around user experience. Charlotte’s decisions are motivated by a desire to use technological innovation to provide cutting-edge support and education to startup founders. As she succinctly puts it — "Founder-forward first and technology second." We also cover a broader discussion around product development and its purpose within startups, including the all-too-common dangers of getting too excited about a product idea — to the point where you lose sight of the need it’s meant to address for your target market! More insightful tidbits follow, including Charlotte’s idea of the evilest application of tech and her predictions on the exciting future of tech-for-good.
In this week's episode, Catherine Lethbridge, Head of Strategy and Marketing at Workfacta, lets us in on her innovative work at Workfacta and the product's ability to create "management zen." "Anyone running a business or a team is constantly fire-fighting," she mentions, "anyone who says otherwise is lying," Catherine explains as she tells us how Workfacta enables her to systemize all the pain when managing her own team. As someone who has managed across industries, Catherine has created the prized "star feature" in Workfacta — a system that alleviates the last-minute havoc of zoom meetings and google meets and instead automates everything from deciding what to talk about, setting the agenda, and taking notes. We bring up the fact that a global survey revealed that 90% of executives admitted to having failed to meet some of their strategic objectives because of problems in execution.This makes products like Workfacta absolutely necessary to achieve the goals companies set and prevent them from getting lost down the communication pipeline. Being fellow supporters of diversity and inclusion, we chat about how Catherine has seen D&I play out across her various roles. Catherine emphasizes the importance of a perspective shift in implementing diversity-based policy. "Diversity is often understood as a difference in cultural background or gender; I see diversity as a different way of thinking." More interesting conversations follow, including Catherine’s predictions for HR tech and her take on one problem that tech can’t solve. To know Catherine better: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-lethbridge/ Catherine’s work at Workfacta: https://www.workfacta.com
In this episode, Phil McParlane, founder and CEO of 4dayworkweek.io, shares his insightful take on the four-day work week and why it’s a far more valuable practice than people give it credit for. “If you worked five hours in a row, the fifth hour would definitely be less productive than the first,” he explains. “It’s the same logic with the traditional work week; stuff just doesn’t get done on Fridays.” As a pioneer of the four-day work week movement, Phil has changed the lives of thousands of employees, encouraging more than 100 companies worldwide to confront the evidence in support of the four-day week and realize the positive impact that this shift can have. Given that 99% of companies which have started the four-day week have stuck with it, Phil is not surprised at all that more people are embracing it as standard practice (including Literal Humans! Read about our four-day week journey here). Even so, we struggle to wrap our heads around the mind-blowing success that the four-day week has had as a job benefit (Phil has had to turn off job listings due to the sheer number of applications received!) Most people want a four-day work week, but most companies currently don’t offer it. And Phil is trying to change this for good. Listen to us also cover the challenges of a four-day week, possible limitations to making this practice global, and finally, Phil McParlane’s idea of one of the evillest uses of technology.
How do we use virtual reality (VR) to train the workforce of the future? Professor Adam Ganz is doing the work to answer that important question. As one of the leaders of StoryFutures Academy at Royal Holloway University of London, Ganz is placing innovative storytelling at the heart of next-generation immersive technologies like augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality. Professor Ganz also brings up their new immersive experience called Storytrails (coming soon!), where people get to use new tech to travel back in time. We have a lot of fun chatting about the VR, AR, and MR universe, its unique but powerful way of blending reality with fiction, and its place in our current reality. We discuss the need for VR in the future, its place in the standard workday, and whether we really aspire to be fully immersed in a two-hour zoom call without the luxury of the mute button. Finally, Professor Ganz reveals his dream tech product. Hint: it would turn our 9 am-5 pm workdays into an 11 am to 3 pm dream! Find Professor Ganz’s and StoryFutures Academy's work here:
- https://www.storyfutures.com/academy
- www.storyfutures.com
A Masterclass on immersive storytelling by Professor Ganz, hosted by Céline Tricart and Liam Young: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60rJHsaLvFo
Storytrails: https://story-trails.com/
Human resources (HR) often gets a bad rap. Whether it’s forcing people back into the office after a pandemic or mismanagement of legitimate employee grievances around issues related to identity (race and gender, for example), it seems like someone always has a bone to pick with HR. Joseph Ifiegbu is out to change that. Leveraging next-gen HR analytics, Joseph and his team at Eqtble are helping companies understand and address challenges around attrition, DEI, employee engagement, and a whole host of other factors that affect their growth. In this episode, Joseph shared great examples of companies that have solved acute problems with pay equity gaps and lagging hiring timelines using the HR tech that his team supplies. His work is chock full of stories about HR data being used to shift culture and improve processes! Ultimately, Joseph noted that the seismic shifts we’ve seen in the workplace–supported by recent HR tech innovations–have been long overdue as workplace preferences and priorities have shifted before, during, and after the pandemic. When it came to the lightning round, Joseph astutely identified empathy as one of the key areas that he believes tech really can’t solve for us as a human race. He also mentioned that he is–like us–a big fan of Notion as a tool for founders to grow their businesses through better knowledge management. You can find Joseph and Eqtble here: * eqtble.com (Company Website) * eqtble.com/case-studies/online-marketplace (Case Study) * eqtble.com/hr-metrics (Curated HR Metrics for Organizations)
“Two things that were clear from how people spent their time during the pandemic – they were doing a lot of drinking and wanking."
Heather Morrison doesn’t mince words. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Bump’n, Morrison and her team have pioneered the world’s first accessible sex toy. The Bump’n Joystick is a flexible bed buddy with gender fluid design that users can hug and attach their favorite sex toy components such as dildos, vibrators, wands, and sleeves. We first heard about Bump’n during our previous episode on disability tech with Giulia Barbareschi, so we thought it’d be great to invite Heather onto the pod and it sure was! Heather talked us through her team’s process to develop the Joystick through in-depth user testing as well as her journey as an advocate for her brother (and fellow co-founder) Andrew along with the broader disabled community. We discussed making pleasure more accessible through tech innovation and even how her team learned a few things about human anatomy during all of that user research. When it came to the lightning round question about the evilest tech out there, Heather went with the tried and true answer of Facebook of course. We even touched on the role of the advertising and marketing industries in sometimes perpetuating false narratives about disabled people (or outright ignoring them), given Heather’s background in advertising. This is a good one chock full of laughs and poignant insights about a sector (sextech) that’s become less and less taboo each day. You can find Heather here: * www.getbumpn.com * Socials: @GetBumpn (insta, twitter, fb)
Charlotte Cramer gets healthtech. She and her team at Plastic Studio leverage their backgrounds in applied neuroscience and behavioural psychology to bring a human-centered and trauma-informed approach to user research and design in healthcare. That’s why we brought her on the pod to discuss identity-focused healthtech startups (like Him & Hers and Folx), her work with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and how she filmed a show for plant-based eating that garnered over 1 million views. We started off discussing healthtech headlines from Sifted such as Numan’s focus on addressing the stigma in men’s health as well as the lack of funding for research in women’s healthcare. Less seriously, Charlotte nailed our infamous question about the evilest application of tech out there (hint: they just changed their company name but they don’t fool us!). More seriously, Charlotte shared some sobering examples of hospitals that use technology to deter undocumented people from accessing healthcare and other technologies leveraged against people of color. Charlotte also leaned into the idea of human connection as a matter that tech can’t solve for us–but can tech enhance it? Be sure to check out Charlotte’s book The Purpose Myth as it provides an interesting answer to our final question about balancing profit and purpose in tech for good. You can find Charlotte here: * plastic-studio.com * linkedin.com/in/charlottecramer * http://getbook.at/thepurposemyth
This week on Tech Can't Save Us, we welcomed Dr. Giulia Barbareschi, disability innovation researcher, who holds a PhD from University College London and previously worked for the World Health Organization providing assistive technology to the Global South.
Dr. Barbareschi is currently a Research Fellow at the Keio School of Media Design in Yokohama, Japan where she leads a project called “Artistic Technologies: Developing Novel Interactions for Inclusive Artistic Expressions” which seeks to find innovative ways to leverage traditional assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, for empowering users to express their creativity through different forms of art in everyday life. On the pod, our conversation was quite wide-ranging and touched on everything from sex toys for people with disabilities and accesibility in the gaming space to ways startups can better support staff and customers across the disability spectrum.
We dug into Dr. Barbareschi's fascinating work at the intersection of art, creativity, and accessibility for people with disabilities. Be sure to pay close attention to our guest's great answer to the juicy question about the evilest application of tech out there--it's a spicy one!
You can find out more about Dr. Barbareschi and her ground-breaking research here:
- https://giulia-barbareschi.com/artistic-technologies/
- https://giulia-barbareschi.com/disability-interactions-book/
Welcome to Season 2 of Tech Can't Save Us!
In this episode, we welcome Chris Sisserian, Head of Intelligence @ Sifted. His team is responsible for putting out weekly briefings that cover the early-stage tech ecosystem in Europe. Their most recent briefings have covered hot topics like femtech, last mile delivery, and online groceries.
We kick off the episode discussing tech for good headlines such as Meta/Facebook's latest shenanigans, big moves in the gaming space (Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard), and the US government's questionable deployment of "dog drones" along the US southern border.
Beyond the headlines, we dig into the work Chris' team is doing to elevate and deliver investment-grade research on the early stage startup world in Europe. We dive into a few favorite briefings such as Gaming and Proptech, while also teasing some upcoming briefings on Edtech and a soon-to-be-published ranking of unicorn and "soonicorn" startups.
If you're looking to deepen your perspective on early-stage tech startups in Europe, have a listen to this exciting new episode.
Here's where you can find Chris & Sifted & Sifted Pro Briefings: * https://sifted.eu/ * https://sifted.eu/pro/briefings
Have you ever thought about the environmental impact of the websites you visit daily?
How about the carbon output of your Netflix queue?
Tom Greenwood sure has. He's even written a book on issues like digital pollution, website efficiency, and sustainable web design.
We talked to Tom about his agency's efforts to make web design and development a bit greener, as well as how he's helping to raise awareness about how our digital activities are connected to climate change.
Tom introduced us to Jevons Paradox (look it up), a number of cool tech tools, as well as his insights about mission-driven businesses and charities. He has a lot to say about "greenwashing" in the tech world, so be sure to listen in!
Here's where you can find Tom: * Wholegrain - www.wholegraindigital.com * Website Carbon Calculator - www.websitecarbon.com * My book - https://abookapart.com/products/sustainable-web-design/
How do tech for good funders decide where to invest? Where do they place their bets and why?
We dug into that big fat question with Paul Miller, Managing Partner and CEO at Bethnal Green Ventures, one of Europe's leading tech for good funders. During our chat we discussed the contours of the tech for good landscape, its explosive growth, and how funders like Bethnal Green Ventures are staying nimble.
Our discussion covered BGV's recent acquisition by a leading pension fund which includes important implications for its portfolio companies (spoiler alert: more opportunities for funding). Miller shared his concerns about protecting the tech for good ecosystem by addressing the dangers of "impact washing" (wrapping initiatives within the guise of social impact while their true nature is not very impactful).
It's a rich conversation about the tech for good space and we hope you'll enjoy it!
You can find Paul and the BGV team here: https://bethnalgreenventures.com/
Shiti watched her grandmother struggle with symptoms of diabetes and dementia. Some of those symptoms included declining mobility and mental health. Naturally, her next move was to build Breathe Happy, an AI platform for posture correction.
Breathe Happy includes multiple different products, one of which is a longevity platform that helps older adults move, breathe, and connect. In partnership with the UK's National Innovation Centre on Ageing, it's been proven to lower stress, improve balance, and enhance sleep.
We spoke with Shiti about all things yoga and wellness, the dangers of the pharmaceutical industry (#techforbad...sometimes), and her beliefs about ideal applications for tech (to really fulfill the idea of "tech for good").
You can find Shiti & Breathe Happy here: https://www.letsbreathehappy.com/ https://praxis-ai.letsbreathehappy.com/
The digitisation of fashion is upon us. Being locked down with all their possessions for the past year, people have begun to reconsider their relationship with their wardrobes. At the same time, there's a huge push for the fashion industry to behave more sustainably.
Enter Little Black Door.
A social wardrobe app that helps people see what they own while sharing and styling their wardrobes with friends. This naturally helps people be more sustainable in their fashion choices (i.e. buy differently, share more). LBD users can see their past, present, and future purchases while also getting connected with their favorite brands and stores. The goal is to help people create highly-personalized fashion interactions.
Lexi Willets, the founder of LBD, sees it as a bridge to greater sustainability in fashion and a tool to raise consciousness among users about their fashion choices and their impact on the environment.
You can find Lexi and LBD here: https://littleblackdoor.io/
What are "digital rights" and how do we secure them in our modern era? Arda Awais and Savena Surana are at the forefront of answering this critical question through their organization Identity 2.0, a creative studio working at the intersection of digital rights, technology, and identity.
In this episode, we discuss their efforts to use provocative and progressive art exhibits to push forward conversations about data privacy and digital human rights.
Identity 2.0 poses and seeks to answer difficult questions such as: Why does participating in online communities require us to sacrifice our privacy? Arda and Savena believe that digital communities have a duty to their users to make them feel safe. They're using cutting edge artistic techniques, building community, and facilitating collective action to ensure it happens.
You can find Arda & Savena (Identity 2.0) here:
www.identity20.org
www.identity20.org/thismachineisblack
Instagram // Twitter
In this episode of Tech Can’t Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Katie Boody-Adorno, Founder of LEANLAB Education, a Kansas City-based nonprofit that builds communities and launches transformational innovations into K-12 schools.
Katie is a former teacher with deep expertise in education who always finds herself in the startup phase of organizations. She founded LEANLAB to pair innovative solutions with the most pressing needs of K-12 schools. LEANLAB is supported by heavy-hitters in education philanthropy like the Gates Foundation and the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.
Katie and Paul discussed systemic challenges in the edtech space including the mismatch between supply and demand as well as structural issues within the procurement process that hamper real innovation in schools. As the leader of LEANLAB, Katie offers up a bold new vision for subverting current paradigms of education innovation by grounding the development of new edtech products in the lived experiences and needs of the local community.
Her team supports entrepreneurs through the co-design process, working hand-in-hand with schools and communities to build and deploy edtech innovations from the ground up rather than the top down. Listen in to hear about the unique edtech solutions her team has helped to launch!
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Sophia "Puff" Story, Co-Founder of 3 Sided Cube, a tech consultancy that builds digital products for tech for good brands.
At 3 Sided Cube, Puff helps tech for good founders create products like mobile apps and web apps during the earlier stages of their founding journeys. When founders are looking for a technical team to build new products, they turn to Puff's team.
Puff and Paul discussed all things agency life, nailing down the true meaning of "tech for good," and the "moral maze" of figuring who to work with as service providers to tech companies.
Puff shares her experience on the traditional agency side of things before launching 3 Sided Cube and now taking a somewhat non-traditional approach to supporting new ventures. One of Puff's greatest successes in the tech for good space was helping the American Red Cross develop and deploy an app that has helped them increase the rate of blood donations in the United States.
Here's where to find Puff & 3 Sided Cube.
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Prateek Agarwal, Founder of Calgee, a new startup on a mission to create the world's most sustainable and high-quality health supplements.
Prateek talked about his personal health journey and how it led him to develop Calgee's first product, a vegan Omega-3 nutritional supplement. The short story: Prateek got a health check-up and realized he needed to make some changes to his nutrition regimen. He looked around for the right products, didn't find a great fit, and then developed his own!
A classic founder story.
Prateek and Paul discussed the ethical implications within the supplements space and broader issues like the fishing industry and its impact on the planet. Prateek's startup really strives to thread the needle by providing maximum value to consumers while reducing its toll on the planet. Prateek shared a great story about receiving customer feedback (specifically palm oil) and taking action on it as a mission-driven founder.
Prateek talked about how much of a gamechanger Shopify has been, the increase in consumer awareness when it comes to "voting with their wallets", and the precise contours of tech for good (a favorite topic of ours!).
Here's where to find Prateek and Calgee: https://calgee.com/
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Milosz Falinski, Founder of Luminous, a consultancy working with emerging tech leaders on a mission.
Milosz helps tech founders create products and services that customers can't live without. He provides mentorship and part-time Chief Product Officer (CPO) services to multiple companies. Milosz also offers a free email course called "12 Weeks To Product-Market Fit" to help founders better position their products.
Milosz and Paul discussed supporting tech founders and helping them navigate the challenges of finding product-market fit, prioritizing the important things while doing iterative testing, and transforming yourself as a founder on a personal level.
Paul and Milosz look at the difference when founders are personally connected to the mission of their organizations. The through-line for Milosz is working with purpose-driven companies and understanding the impact on the lives of users. Moving past the abstractions of "product" is a major driver for Milosz.
Here's where to find Milosz: https://www.miloszfalinski.com/
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Tiernan Mines, Co-Founder of Hello Lamp Post, an innovative tech for good product that brings cities and their citizens closer together.
Hello Lamp Post allows people to have two-way 'chats' with their surroundings, providing people with key local information, while gathering important perceptions, opinions and ideas. Hello Lamp Post helps increase participation and engagement in local decision making. Insights from interactions are anonymously shared with organisations such as local authorities to enable better informed decision making.
Tiernan and Paul discussed the future of cities and urban planning, the importance of listening to end users when developing tech for good products, and channeling people's frustrations into usable tools that enhance their lives.
Paul and Tiernan discuss how everyday citizens will potentially be able to engage with living history in cities and towns through augmented reality tech. The implications for enhancing the experience of people navigating physical spaces with new "interactive layers" are massive! Tiernan leaned into the "tech for bad" question by talking about the scary potential of remote warfare as well as dealing with the negative externalities of well-intended tech products. This episode is rich with tech for good fodder!
Here's where to find Hello Lamp Post: https://www.hlp.city/
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Rima Patel, Co-Founder of Impactful, a social innovation agency that is revolutionizing corporate social responsibility by unlocking the social impact in commercially driven businesses. Impactful's bold mission is to transform the role of businesses in society.
Rima and Paul discussed companies' varying responses to social movements and major issues like climate change. A big point of the discussion focused on how businesses are operating in their own "backyards" vs. stepping into areas of philanthropy that are frankly a bit of a stretch for some of these companies. Rima believes that tech can't replace self-expression and art in part because humans have an insatiable need to connect with one another. Paul talked about the role of some tech for good startups like Papa to provide core services like care for elderly. Rima talked about the power of tech to potentially help people connect with local small businesses and build real human relationships with small "mom and pop" businesses. Overall, Rima was chock full of great ideas about all things tech for good and the work of Impactful is super inspiring!
Here's where to find Impactful
Here's the Impactful Business Playbook
Impactful on Twitter
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Ash Read, Head of Content at Buffer, a prominent social media management tool that helps users drive authentic engagement.
Ash and Paul discussed the growth of empathy on social media in light of recent events. They talk about monitoring and supporting the health of social media managers, an often overlooked group in tech. Ash shared a few features that are being worked on at Buffer to create a healthier social media ecosystem.
The discussion turned to the responsibilities of content marketers to deliver adequate context within the content they produce (e.g. moving away from "hustle porn"). Ash is a huge advocate of Notion as a productivity tool. He believes that tech can't solve the core problem of greed in society and that advertising technology can be quite problematic. Lastly, don't forget kids, "cash is energy"...put it to good use!
Here's where to find Buffer: https://buffer.com/
And where to find Ash: https://twitter.com/Ashread_
And Ash's side project: https://www.livingcozy.com/
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to James McMillan, the Founder of myNexus, a new platform that is creating the UK’s leading Entrepreneurial Ecosystem which uses technology to smart-match entrepreneurs and investors, increasing and accelerating investment in early-stage business.
James and Paul talk about building a healthier funding ecosystem for underestimated and underfunded tech founders in the UK and beyond. They discuss the resistance to eliminating barriers to funding for promising, new founders within the angel investing and venture capital communities.
There's even an interesting link between what James is working on and modern online dating apps!
The two discuss how to build a product that overcomes systemic issues in the funding ecosystem and the danger of designing in a way that builds in existing biases. James talks about how to address the core problem of "the wrong people coming together to do the wrong deals." It's a massive challenge in the funding ecosystem and James is on track to address it.
Here's where to find myNexus:
www.joinmynexus.com twitter.com/joinmynexus linkedin.com/company/joinmynexus
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Jordan Jackson, the Founder of Black Men's Book Club, a newsletter and app that offers hacked audio summaries of popular books with a focus on the Black community.
Jordan currently works full-time as a developer with Quicken Loans in Detroit. His journey into tech was extremely unorthodox--he dropped out of college and eventually fell in with friends who convinced him to take up coding and work on a new product.
Jordan and Paul talk about the contours of tech for good, how diving into the work is the best training, and the limits of empathy within the world of tech. Find out what Jordan's dream tech product would be (hint: it connects to renewable energy and space tech). Jordan also teaches Paul about LiDAR technology and shares his predictions for the tech for good sector.
Here's where to find Jordan Jackson and Black Men's Book Club:
BMBC Website: https://blackmenbookclub.com
BMBC App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bmbc-audio-book-summaries/id1539826611
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jordanwcjackson
In this episode of Tech Can't Save Us, CEO and Co-Founder of Literal Humans Paul David talks to Kajal Sanghrajka, the Founder and Director of Growth Hub Global which helps businesses, entrepreneurs and universities in Europe to grow globally.
Kajal started her career in the corporate world working on Wall Street and in London before going back to business school in New York and using this as a launchpad to start her own entrepreneurial career. She then started Colombia University's first incubator, and has worked with new entrepreneurs ever since.
Kajal talks about the differences between the US and Europe when it comes to founding businesses, not in terms of process but in terms of founder mindset. She talks about how tech can help start-up businesses (who often have tighter budgets) and gives her top tips for new entrepreneurs - done is better than perfect!
Here's where you can find Kajal:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kajalsanghrajka/
Twitter: @kajalnyclon
Subscribe to the Transatlantic Post and editorial on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
To find out more about Literal Humans, visit literalhumans.com
In the second episode of Tech Can't Save Us Paul David, the Co-Founder and CEO of Literal Humans, talks to Carmela Resume from FLYTE who calls in from Hawaii.
Carmela is the Executive Director of FLYTE, a non-profit organisation which empowers youth through travel by working with young people from underserved communities across the United States to give them the opportunity to go abroad, in many cases for the first time.
Carmela talks about how tech helps FLYTE students to create deeper connections with the people and culture they are visiting abroad, and how tech helps them to continue connecting once the trip has finished. She also talks about economies that depend on tourism have been affected by the pandemic and how these economies must look to expand in to different areas in order to be sustainable in the future.
To find out more about Literal Humans, visit literalhumans.com
In the first episode of Tech Can't Save Us Paul David, Co-Founder and CEO of Literal Humans, speaks to Krys Burnette.
Krys is currently working for a global sportswear brand and she speaks about what they did to use tech for good when the pandemic first hit, and the overall responsibility that big companies have to leverage tech to connect people in different ways as a result of the pandemic.
Krys also talks about the Black Lives Matter movement and what effect this has had on corporate culture. She talks about the concept of emotional labor, and gives some examples of what big brands are doing to invest in business teams that are focused on culture. On a personal level, she speaks about what it's like to be a Black American working in Europe as opposed to in the States.
To find out more about Literal Humans, visit literalhumans.com
Tech Can't Save Us is a tech for good podcast from Literal Humans, a creative marketing agency. Hosted by Paul David, the Co-Founder of Literal Humans, Tech Can't Save Us is all about the good, the bad and the ugly of the tech for good sector.
Paul will invite guests on to every podcast episode to talk about how tech makes us better people and how it can enhance life on earth for all creatures - but also about how tech can harm society, and what we can do to fix it.
Through open conversations with representatives from Adidas, Google, Buffer, Facebook and smaller emerging companies like Science with Sophie and The Black Men's Book Club, Tech Can't Save Us aims to give an honest insight in to the tech for good sector - what it's doing well, and what could be improved.
Find out more about Literal Humans and our work with mission driven brands, tech for good start ups and non-profits at literalhumans.com.